Album Review: POWER HOUSE by Magi Merlin
Five years of EPs behind her, the Montreal singer-producer scales her self-coined broken R&B up to a debut full-length of taunts, gratitude used as a weapon, and hooks that crack on purpose.
Broken R&B is practiced by exactly one artist. The genre name is claimed by a Montreal-based singer, producer, and actress called Magi Merlin (Mahd-j-eye, in pronunciation), who explored the concept with three EPs, namely Drug Music in 2021, Gone Girl released a year later, and A Weird Little Dog published last year. All of her records were made with the help of her longtime writing and producing partner Funkywhat while she was directing her own art projects as well as playing Chloe in Mile End Kicks. Magi Merlin implies something definite by “Broken R&B.” In her music, singing constantly breaks into speaking, hooks seem to be positions falling apart under the pressure, and the characters command others while asking to hold them. POWER HOUSE, her official debut, gives those characters a house to struggle in.
On “Welcome Home,” amidst blunt bass beats and distorted sounds, a woman evaluates the space that she cannot verify as her possession: “Where am I?/I own this place?/I own this place.” Someone named Harsh has left there. She convinces herself of her own competency in the moment, saying, “I’ll take care of it, though,” and ends up with “I fucking got it/I got it/I got it/I got,” leaving the last word unfinished.
The confidence gets embodied in the body on “SpiceKick.” It is a drum machine stomping rhythm with smudgy and rubbery bassline and stiff snare patterns. Initially, she presents herself in a detached manner, begins controlling the room, and promises to inflict some violence with a grin on her face, “My music’s bat shit/Paid for your casket/I think you’ll like it/Now mark the date.” The most humorous part is the party pause when the mockery breaks, “See, she’s laughing at everything I say/I only told a joke like twice.” She then makes plans regarding taking over everything with her face pasted everywhere and gives people the tool to “save yourself from me.”
The very mouth that paid for the casket continues giving some thank-you notes to someone. “Thank You!!!” is a high-pressure banger with hard drums under the sheared hook while she is silencing the entire room. At the same time, she grades herself publicly, “Oh I think that I’m a clout chaser/I’m living like everybody else, losers.” Firstly, she dictates some laws, then the beat changes and becomes dubby, dislocated vamp, and the law changes accordingly, since gratitude appears as soon as she decides that she deserves everything. The following spoken assault sounds as a deposition, “Listen to me closely baby I’m the fucking best,” and she plans her own escape, “What’s fucking the plan?/Make another hit, fuck with another man.”
“EAT!ME!OUT!” pushes her appetite into a live room. One of the album’s standouts features a hard drum pocket and thick bass with the saxophone that turns into the jam and argues with her instead of backing her. She persuades a lover “down down down to the brink” and uses an insult that she has gathered up, “I’m impossible to please/What else do you think about me,” using court language for her plea: “I plead guilty, your honor/Until the tables turn/And they’re turning.” The title pun does the closing argument, “You got me eating out your—/Can’t think, you’re eating me out.”
Men are polite about their appetite on “pixxxie,” where the role of the character is performed by the synth line with a cutting edge while she portrays the girl scripted in someone else’s screenplay, demoted to the queue, “Write me as a friend then/Waiting in your backlog,” told to wait for him by some Josh. She continues correcting the script from inside it, “I’m not lost/I’m just in your bed.” “Workout” turns the same self-performance into the exercise. Drum-machine hitting and handclap accents motivate her to perform some reps of the personality, “Folding myself thin so that you’ll like me, maybe,” with the modern world already in her body, “Thick just like the plastic in my bloodstream, baby.” Near the end of the song, the gun appears in the middle of the party, and she treats it as a coat check item, “It’s only just a gun/Touch it through my pocket for me/Move it to the side,” then judges the woman who stares at her, “Promise I won’t take your bride/But she’s looking me up and down/Maybe she just wants a ride.” The song ends while she is tasting her own temper, “I’m angry again/Ooh my favorite.”
She sings most gently on “So Smart” with long notes and phrases over soft keyboard chords and a restrained pulse. Where the negotiation takes place with herself, “I’ll push to be nicer to me, I guess,” and the price of being adored gets named, “Call me pretty, I’ll forget who I am.” The hook comes back like the note that she has left for herself on the fridge. “WHIP” brings the commands into the hook on the lurching pocket with the back-and-forth responses, “Fuck your ideas/(Blasted for it)/I don’t like it,” with the tell hidden in the bridge: “‘Safe-word’ another fight/Safety, all I wanted.” “Crawl” is the thin song. It features tight close-sung phrases creeping over the dragging drum-machine grind and a melodic figure that does not become the chorus. Its best part is the confession, “I’m about to sell out/Paid for acting real cold/Now it’s weighing on my mental,” circling the feeling that the music around it does not get off the ground.
Selling out gets the wardrobe on “POPSTAR.” A demand is put to her, “Give us a modicum of truth/To set you free,” and she answers it as a card player, “I see and raise you another,” then hedges her own jackpot, “Raise up raise up/I bet you won’t/I hope I don’t win my bets,” over the thick bass groove and slow drum hits that make the hook sound as a statement instead of the chorus. The final part is the real-time dressing sequence, “Look at my fit/Hots easy, try it bent/Caught/Am I?/Heart beat in my chest.”
The suit is taken off on “Wtvr.” It is a mid-tempo and fluid track with chords that are folding around her voice while she is asking for the one thing that she cannot accept, “I feel guilty when you tell me you are proud,” softened later into the plea, “I feel guilty/Please just tell me you are proud.” She names her condition and orders it to be fixed simultaneously, “Ooh lala/Home inside a girl/Fix that.” Despite all the guilt, she never stops enjoying her spoils. The whole appetite can fit into the minute of “Salt.” It is a thin and bright percussion explosion where the winning is done already, “I’m in Paris/Living at the top/Off the fucking clock/Breaking all your hearts,” and the only mouth left to feed is hers: “Mmmm, you taste that? You taste that?/I taste that/I taste that/I taste that.” She comes back for the taste, and no one else gets a bite.
Great (★★★★☆)
Favorite Track(s): “EAT!ME!OUT!,” “Thank You!!!,” “Workout”