Minna Choi of San Francisco-based Magik*Magik has already earned her indie music bonafides. Her side project, the Magik*Magik Orchestra, collects Bay Area classical musicians—from trios to 60-person ensembles—and dispatches them like tuneful assassins on operations with Death Cab for Cutie, Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood, and John Vanderslice.
Though she’s been wrangling musicians for the orchestra since 2008, Magik*Magik itself is still Choi’s one-woman-show. Her self-titled debut on Trans Records was released on October 14th of this year. Much like the Magik*Magik Orchestra itself, the record feels by turns big and small, epic and intimate.
“Weep” offers a Björk-esque blend of electronic beats and brooding minor-key orchestral strings, showing off Choi’s breadth of talent for musical arrangement. But the frontwoman’s voice—effortlessly warm, even when strained with emotion—is tonally light-years away from the legendary Icelandic pixie’s.
The music video is something else entirely. Witness dancer Coco Karol’s hauntingly beautiful performance tell a story of its own alongside the lyrics. And Karol’s and Choi’s emotive interlude, captured spontaneously during the filming, may just induce some goosebumps (or even tears) of your own.
