Damon and Naomi's tenure in Magic Hour (1993 to 1997)

2026-03-03
Categories: damon & naomi substack

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Damon and Naomi's tenure in Magic Hour (1993 to 1997)

A couple of weeks ago I posted the last Magic Hour post of this series (although there are a couple of releases in my wantlist) and so I thought I’d do a quick Magic Hour rundown of their appearances.

If you’re unaware Magic Hour were a band formed by Wayne Rogers and Kate Biggar after disbanding Crystalized Movements in the early 90s. For Magic Hour they recruited Damon and Naomi for a rhythm section and released three albums and a number of other releases before coming to an end after a performance at the first Terrastock festival in 1997.

Pretty much everything the band ever released is available on Bandcamp.

The band was (mostly) quite a departure from both Galaxie 500 and Damon & Naomi’s own work with the emphasis being more on the rock bit of their psyhedelic rock description. Damon and Naomi were the rhythm section but Naomi did sing on one track, their beautiful cover of Sally Free and Easy on the first album.

Quite a lot of the bands appearances in the my record collection series were quite early and there are a couple of things to note that might make the posts seem a little less in-depth than a some:

Damon and Naomi weren’t the prime movers in the band.
I, annoyingly despite having the opportunity, never managed to see them live.

I won’t re-post all their appearances in the series, and perhaps just extracts, and picking the ones that are maybe more insightful or interesting - although no promises that they’re either!

[043] Magic Hour - Will They Turn You On or Will They Turn on You (15th June 2023)

Will They Turn You On or Will They Turn on You was Magic Hour’s second album and this edition was released in the UK on Che records and is in a rather gaudy orange vinyl.

I first bought this on CD around the time of release and bought this copy some time later. The inner sleeve of the LP has an astrological chart that wasn’t included in the CD, it appears to have the details for all band members…

Innermost wheel - Naomi Yang
Middle inner wheel - Damon Krukowski
Middle outer wheel - Kate Biggar
Outermost wheel - Wayne Rogers

Now, obviously astrology is a load of balderdash, so I’ve never really paid any attention to it, but the chart is rather lovely to look at even if I haven’t a clue what it is supposed to mean. I’ve always been rather taken by the nonsense of magic and folk stories and other such mystical shit. I guess that’s why it appeals.

So… here’s mine, I’m sure this shows that I’m obsessive and bothered by inaccuracies - like, for example, album titles that are questions but don’t have a question mark.

[046] Magic Hour - No Excess Is Absurd (26th June 2023)

No Excess Is Absurd was Magic Hour’s first album and is the one with the bonus of having Naomi doing a gorgeous vocal on their cover of folk standard Sally Free and Easy. It was released in the uk by Che records and I would have bought this round the time it was released in 1994.

A dying No Excess Is Absurd - Magic Hour

News item in the NME, October 1994 — News item, NME 1994

Now, 1994 was the very early days of the Internet, I started A Head Full of Wishes in the autumn of that year. Magic Hour toured the UK in October 1994 … I managed to miss this news item in NME and so managed to not see them when they toured. There is a video of their show at The Sausage Machine in Camden on the 28th October which should make me happy but just makes me all the more annoyed that I missed it.

My CD of this is dying. When they were new, CDs were pitched as being indestructible but… no, turns out this was nonsense - in fact not indestructible rather they fail more catastrophically - I’ll have a story to tell about this in a later post. Luckily… No Excess is Absurd is one of the many releases in this series I have multiple copies of so my dying Che CD isn’t a complete catastrophe.

[057] Magic Hour - Will They Turn You On or Will They Turn on You (3rd August 2023)

The album was, according to the sleeve, “Recorded Summer/Autumn 1994” however three of the tracks (including the epic Passing Words) had previously been recorded in May of that year for a Peel Session. You can hear the full Peel Session here or if you prefer to hear some of it with Peelie’s intro/outro, the first 90 minutes of the three hour show can be listened to on the Internet Archive and includes the first two tracks of the session.

I’m glad there are quite a lot of Peel shows out there because it’s great to listen to a show periodically to remind yourself that no one has come even close to what he was doing back then.

[068] Magic Hour - Heads Down (4th September 2023)

Heads Down was the first release by Magic Hour and the single has one track split into Part 1 & Part 2 on each side of a seven inch single. It teases a song at the beginning but by the b-side is a gorgeously relentless torrent of noise.

I bought this on Discogs for two quid, including postage, back in 2012 which is quite a bargain! Actually I think you can still get copies for peanuts on Discogs or you can grab it, along with a hatful of Magic Hour obscurities on their Magic Moments collection.

[127] Magic Hour - I Had a Thought / America (28th March 2024)

After a crazy run of Magic Hour releases in the first few months of this series this is their first appearance in over six months. This is a black vinyl copy of the last Magic Hour single.

The A side is I Had a Thought and is lifted from their second album Will They Turn You On or Will They Turn on You, the B side is a cover of America from Peruvian rock band Traffic Sound’s third album, Tibet’s Suzettes from 1970.

The picture on the sleeve is of indigenous American Mountain Chief listening to a recording on a wax cylinder being played by enthnologist Frances Densemore in 1916. A different pic from the same session appeared on the sleeve of the Folkways album Healing Songs of the American Indians.

[135] Magic Hour - No Excess is Absurd (LP) (25th April 2024)

As hinted at in my previous post about Magic Hour’s No Excess is Absurd there was a coloured vinyl copy coming your way. Well this is it, a rather lovely purple slab.

Magic Hour - No Excess is Absurd (purple vinyl LP)

I also suggested in that post that I might come up with something more insightful to write about the album, but I’m not sure that I have. Magic Hour released three albums, I have four copies of this one (so there’s one more chance for that insightful post), but I don’t actually have a copy of their third one. I suspect because, while the first two were released by UK label Che as well as Wayne and Kate’s own label Twisted Village, Secession 96 only got released on Twisted Village and copies were scarce (in the UK) and pricey when I last looked.

While I like all three albums I probably do like No Excess the best, and not just because of Naomi’s only vocal contribution to Magic Hour’s oeuvre (although that certainly helps, since it means it’s the one I tend to reach for).

The sleeve is a frame taken from Harry Smith’s Film No.7: Color Study - the film was silent but someone has popped his “early abstractions” on YouTube with a custom soundtrack.

Harry Smith: Early Abstractions 1946-57 (play on YouTube)

[291] Magic Hour - After Tomorrow (10”) (6th October 2025)

Magic Hour’s second release, just ahead of their first album, came out on Ché Records in 1994 and contained, on the a-side, a couple of tracks from Magic Hour’s first albun No Excess is Absurd After Tomorrow and World of One, which was only on the CD versions of the album. On the b-side is a fifteen minute version of Permanent Green Light, originally released by NY psych-rock band The Godz on their second album.

I managed to miss out on Permanent Green Light on my originals series a few years back, mostly I imagine because it didn’t state on the sleeve that it was a cover and I was unfamiliar with The Godz. It did mention that it was written by Jim McCarthy on the label so I ought to have picked up on it, but suspect that I just hadn’t pulled it out of the sleeve enough to notice.

In 2016 Magic Hour released a digital only compilation of non-album tracks which is where I was alerted to the omission as the Bandcamp page clearly stated “‘Permanent Green Light by the Godz’”. The Godz original was just four minutes long but I could imagine it being stretched live, and Magic Hour’s version is exactly how I’d imagine it to sound if it were, Lots of noise, lots of feedback, and a motorik relentlessness. It hits my psych-rock buttons that normally end up in me digging out Hawkwind LPs.

You can hear the original four minute version by The Godz on YouTube, and you can listen to, and buy, the Magic Hour version on Bandcamp for a dollar!

The randomness of my method of selection has been particularly odd with Magic Hour who turned up seven times in the first 100 posts and only twice in the almost 200 since then, and this is the first Magic Hour entry since in eighteen months - and there are (currently) only two more after this one.

OK, I think that’ll do but, if you want more here’s a list of links to all the Magic Hour entries:

… and here’s that full show from The Sausage Machine in London in 1994:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JveFMa97YU

On the 3rd of May 1994, while Magic Hour were in London promoting their debut album No Excess is Absurd, the band headed into the BBC’s Maida Vale studios to record a session for Radio One’s John Peel show. They recorded three songs in a session that was aired a few weeks later and has pretty much been lost to our ears ever since - until now… you can listen to and/or download the complete Peel Session here.

If you haven’t given Magic Hour your time I’d highly suggest you do, they might not be what you’d expect from Damon and Naomi but they make a very pleasing noise and, as I said, you can pick up everything on Bandcamp - in fact for less than $25 you can buy downloads of all of their output.

SubstackDamon and Naomi's tenure in Magic Hour (1993 to 1997)