INTRODUCING: Hentai Magi

Hentai Magi is the solo project of Sydney-sider Roberto Klaic – or the ’20th Century Boy’, who, according to his self-mythologising, was “spawned out of a young man who had reached the end of his evolutionary state and found transcendence in the sonic dimension”. Press release bravado aside, I’m amazed this guy is still flying so low under the radar. Perhaps the sinister nomenclature – not to mention the necklace made of bones – has been scaring the punters off. Beneath the sci-fi and gothic symbolism, Hentai Magi’s debut EP is a very consistent little collection of pop songs. 

The pagan overtones are realised to some extent in the circular grind of Klaic’s compositions, which tend towards drone despite the abundance of melodic hooks. The tracks are composed of screwed up organ sounds, probably guitar generated, alongside drum machines, booming bass, synth arpeggios and guitar solos that are reminiscent of pop savant Wild Nothing. The EP, strong on themes of forgiveness and the will to forget, feels like it was written in the wake of some emotional distress. Klaic has tortured these pop songs with bursts of noise and blown out drums that at their loudest sound like fireworks, and the climactic passages brim with elements that thud up against one another like it were a contest.

Hentai Magi achieves a strange balance between aggression, contemplation and pop; the schizophrenic dark side of Japanese counterculture meeting the ritual chants of a summer solstice.

You can stream the EP below, or get the whole thing for yourself as a name-your-price download on Bandcamp.

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