By Deuce

Looking to test yourself? Trying to find the next challenge to conquer without going out and committing random acts of nonsense seen on television, film, computer, and phone screens everywhere? Then throw on “Magic Master”, the latest offering from your man Ty Wood, and see how long you can go without moving to the music or, just plain bopping to the beat.

This reviewer, who wasn’t even trying to do any such thing, gave in only a few seconds into the track. The tune comes in beating, with a live drum pattern, rhythm guitar that’s so intricate sounding it could’ve been some algorithm on a synth, and a bass line that’s intertwined with the lightest of electric guitars.

We’re talking a smooth, upper-mid tempo affair, not too fast, but flowing enough to make the instrumentation stand out. Moreover, the progressions on this number have a propensity for adding emotion and color to the sonic landscape, if you will. Credit that to Wood’s songwriting, bereft of the vocals, that is (we’re coming to that treat in a second).

Before he even gets to the hook the chords change, rising in intensity seemingly matched by the pace of the guitar work. The track is obviously building to something, but you’re not quite sure what, until Woods evens things out again on the hook, talking ‘bout “baby you got the magic in you/and you bring out the magic in me for sure”.

Thus, we’ve hit upon the most charming part of this ode to sorcery, and the sorcerer weaving this enchanting and entrancing spell: Wood’s vocals. It’s not just that he’s kicking a fun style over a sheer delight of a tune. It’s that his phrasing, his inflection, is so adroit, it sets the mood even more so than the music does, if not complements it rousingly. Everything he does on the mic on this one is so right, there’s simply no room for wrong—or anything else.

It doesn’t hurt that the mix is tight, with the snare on the drumming sounding so good you think it’s programmed, at first. And, with Woods having his way it just might be, or much more likely, it’s simply attributed to…magic.