Magi – Win Or Lose LP ( VINYL )

First time authorized reissue of Rust Belt hard rockers Magi’s (pronounced ˈmā-ˌjī) 1976 privately-pressed, hard rock nugget, Win Or Lose, originally issued on the infamous Uncle Dirty’s Sound Machine label. Win Or Lose carries similar glimmers to other vulgar, pre-PC, mid-American rock whose stock-in-trade boy meets girl early rock’n’roll topicry could easily be pulled from the Rock 101 playbook, but Magi was more than mired in muscle and machismo. Magi displayed the general insouciance, hormones, and discontent of their age, but also a concerned and wounded heart underneath the veneer, much less common to the field.

While essentially a meat-and-potatoes hard rock record, the album flies closer to the early ‘70s beginnings of the genre (with nuance and psychedelic hangover in tow), when the definition was less rigidly and generically defined, and is additionally expertly sequenced across its eight strong tracks, improved by a masterful mix and remaster by T. Dallas Reed (Electric Wizard, Iron Claw, Mos Generator, Orange Sunshine, Poobah, Saint Vitus, Treepeople, Truth And Janey, et al.), utilizing a reel-to-reel from the original recording sessions. In-depth and informative liner notes by Jeremy Cargill (Got Kinda Lost / NTS Radio) and Patrick Lundborg.