Even if we weren't around when they were made, certain cinematic images-- maybe even just fragments or reflections of the original-- are ingrained into our collective mind. They're all parts of this romantic obsession with cinema: flickering black and white projections, dark afternoon theaters, and that instant before a film ends where the camera captures someone's face and then irises in before the credits roll. Piano Magic has inadvertently been making soundtracks for these reflected fragments since the mid-90s. Then again, it's too easy a mistake to just stop with that evocative, imagined feel of Saturday matinee nostalgia. Because there's also a definite chill to their works, created by a lyrical and musical backdrop often filled with ghoulish living-doll voices and a David Lynch-goes-Through the Looking Glass sonic surrealism. Still, that's missing the band's often Kraut-inspired, layered electronic fuzz, the Baroque-type elegies of WWI, and their recent instrumental work that falls somewhere into GYBE! terrain.

Piano Magic tend to exist in this state of fluctuation. And it's not just the music. Since the very beginning, Glen Johnson (the only member of the band with any real sense of stasis) has had a revolving-door policy concerning band members. The result is a band that's cycled through well over 30 members in just over five years' time. And they've recorded one-offs, singles, EPs and albums for almost as many labels as they've had members, which makes this compilation a welcome entry into the band's catalog (unless you're one of those fetishists who plopped down the cash for the original super-limited singles). Because not only is a full list of band members included on the inside tray, but this compilation collects every a-side, b-side and compilation appearance between 1996 and 2000.

If it wasn't obvious before now, Seasonally Affective makes it painfully so: Piano Magic and Glen Johnson are at their best when laying down tracks for those little slabs of wax we call singles. While much of their full-lengths have been spotty with moments of beautiful clarity, the chronologically collected works here are brief, sequenced snapshots of the band in shifting phases. The result is an often jarring-- the sound may change drastically from one single to the next-- amassment of repeatedly beautiful material.

Since there's so much material collected herein, it would be too daunting to cover everything, so I'll just hit some of the high and low points. The first track on the compilation, "Wrong French," is the essence of what can make Piano Magic so great. Beginning with drizzled rain atop the creeping hum of organ in the distance, it suddenly erupts with crashing thunder before an eerie girl's voice begins speaking: "And there were those films made in the 70s where dolls ran through fields, late at night, after men." Raechel Leigh's voice and the purring organ build a haunting frame for the song. The voice, in particular, is, although not sinister, very creepy-- the nightmare voice of a doll brought to life. Speaking in terse, broken phrases like the string has just been pulled on its back: "His shirt is my dress," or, "It's breaking the jail of ribs," or the repeated anguish of, "And he said it won't hurt."

Elsewhere, there's "Wintersport/Cross Country," a melancholy-tinged track filled with electronic gurgles and shimmering keys while Hazel Burfitt's buoyant vocals name-check Charlie Brown, Snoopy ("falls dead in the snow") and Lucille Ball. After the vocals end, we find Johnson and crew really feeling their way in the studio, layering clocks tick-tocking away over atmospheric synth, chirping birds, and a keyboard click-clacking into gallop mode for a hallucinatory four-minute stretch. Two tracks from the seven-inch "For Engineers" find Piano Magic in the studio trenches yet again, piecing together intricate layers of lo-fi noise and blending the sounds of static percussion, the droned murmurs of synthesizer and the banging of cans into a continually looping mix.

"The Fun of the Century" is a beautiful acoustic dirge, with Jen Adam taking over vocal duties and crooning out precious lines like, "Could it be that you broke me into a sheet of rain swept sideways?" Conversely, the disc ends with "Music for Rolex" which finds Johnson playing it solo and delving into the minutiae of studio sound worlds. The result is at odds with much of Piano Magic's downcast output, a bubbly keyboard-laden adventure with intermittent bursts of static hiss and percussion that bounces along in measured, marching time.

Appearing on the second disc, the rare "Music for Annahbird" single is presented in its entirety, three gorgeous instrumental tracks that are perfect representations of what make Johnson a studio whiz kid. The title track is loaded with synth-strings over burbling electro-loops, while "Music for Wasps" is all ambience filled with cricket-buzz, swamped-down murky electronics, and a distant scraping fuzz. The up-until-now impossibly rare "Amongst the Books, An Angel" is a glorious gentle track that lurches into a full-steam rocker, finding Johnson and Leigh swapping vocals. Beginning very calmly with just Johnson singing, the song soon swirls into driving guitar and 4AD-ish howling vocals.

Of the two discs here, the second is the weaker, containing some subpar material amongst an overall great collection. Many of the complaints about Piano Magic in recent memory have been attributed to Johnson's too precious and somber lyric and vocal style. And although I don't find his voice difficult to endure, some of his lyrics are either horribly missed attempts at serious poetry or hilarious stabs at surrealism ("The Canadian Brought Us Snow"): "Sleeping beside/ Treat us like eggs/ Box-jellyfish light/ Tinsel Legs."

A couple of things become apparent after listening to the collection several times. Primarily, the lyrics that Johnson pens are best interpreted by other singers. Secondly, and somewhat related to Johnson's taking over primary vocal duties, there's a distinct difference between the weightiness of early Piano Magic and the material rounding out the second disc. While an air of sadness has always been present in almost everything issued under the Piano Magic name, the earlier work was also saturated with a feel of playful energy and revitalization-- something that seems to be entirely absent from much of the slit-your-wrists depression of later tracks like "Sketch for Joanne" and "The Biggest Lie." Although that's not to say Seasonally Affective isn't worth your time. For anyone at all interested in the band, this compilation successfully paints Piano Magic as one of the better singles bands of the last few years, a group that's consistently rotating members and constantly on the path to reinvention.

-Luke Buckman, November 20th, 2001