Montreal sorta-duo Majical Cloudz’s forthcoming LP Impersonator is an album best experienced as an album; it invites and rewards immersion. Still, the individual Impersonator tracks that have thus far been released make that invitation pretty damn hard to turn down. If you slept on “Childhood’s End” when it debuted in March, turn right back around and download it now. And today, the band have made available another track, “Bugs Don’t Buzz,” a brooding, lush number that captures in miniature the lucid, somber majesty of the collection. Point blank, it’s one of the best albums I’ve heard this year. You can download the song below, and below that, read Majical Cloudz mainman Devon Welsh’s short essay on the song’s origins, from the band’s Tumblr, and below that, check out the band’s remaining tour dates (with Youth Lagoon). And you absolutely should do all these things, then get the album, and then see them live.

Majical Cloudz – “Bugs Don’t Buzz”

Hi,

This is a song from our upcoming record called “Bugs Don’t Buzz”.

Okay wow I’m really excited to be releasing this song. It’s hard to explain why a song feels really personal when it’s through a Tumblr post, but this song means a lot to me. I’ve been so sad and this song has been around, and I’ve been so happy and this song has been around. It’s accumulated layers of memories because it’s been around for a long time. Releasing it feels very intimate for some reason.

I wrote a version of it on piano in 2008 when I was nineteen but then forgot about it until my friend found it on my computer a few years later.

When I first wrote it the lyrics didn’t mean that much to me, they just kind of came out. I didn’t consider it anything special — at the time I was trying to write as many songs as possible, filling hard drives with recordings just for practice. Then for a long while after that I lost confidence in my ability to write songs, and during this time my friend used “Bugs Don’t Buzz” as an example of why I had made beautiful things and shouldn’t be so hard on myself. As is so often the case when someone is trying to help you, I didn’t really listen as much as I could have!

Before Matt and I played our first show, I realized I could sing the song over a piano loop, so we played it live and it felt really good. So this is the recorded version of the song. It’s a special song to me because of everything I just explained. It feels like the act of playing it is in some small way an attempt to repay the friend who encouraged me to have confidence.

“Bugs Don’t Buzz” is on a record called Impersonator that is coming out on May 21st in North America and May 27th everywhere else.

Also!

On May 21st we are playing a record release show in New York City at Glasslands. We are really excited about it — we will have copies of the LP! If you want to come this is where you can get tickets: http://www.ticketfly.com/purchase/event/261705?utm_medium=bks

Thanks!

Majical Cloudz/Youth Lagoon tour dates:

05/02 Nashville TN @ Mercy Lounge
05/03 Asheville NC @ Grey Eagle Tavern
05/04 Carrboro NC @ Cats Cradle
05/06 Hoboken NJ @ Maxwells
05/07 Northampton MA @ Pearl Street Nightclub
05/08 Hamden CT @ The Space
05/09 Brooklyn NY @ The Bell House
05/10 Philadelphia PA @ Union Transfer
05/13 Toronto ON @ The Great Hall
05/14 Columbus OH @ A&R Music Bar
05/15 Chicago IL @ Metro
05/16 Madison WI @ Majestic Theatre
05/17 Minneapolis MN @ Fine Line Music Cafe

Impersonator is out 5/21 via Matador.