4 or 5 Magicians

4 or 5 Magicians are an alternative rock outfit from Brighton, East Sussex, UK. They take most obvious infuence from the golden era of American alt-rock … Guided by Voices, Sebadoh, Dinosaur Jr., Pavement, R.E.M., Nirvana, Pixies, Built to Spill, and early Weezer and Everclear, but could write a list as long as your arm of bands who have influenced them, and even then, you’d have to have a pretty long arm, and a pretty small pen.

The band has operated in a transient state for most of its existence but now intends to focus on progressing with a fixed live lineup. Songwriter Dan Ormsby (vocals and guitar, plus drums on recorded output), will be joined by Sam Clarke (guitar), Ivan Berry (bass) and Alex Wilkinson (drums) at live shows. Graham Pembrey (guitar, keyboards) will play keyboards live as and when. Daniel Moss (guitar) may rejoin the band as soon as he fully recovers from a somewhat bizarre arm injury he sustained while a little intoxicated in Autumn 2008.

The band has, in the past, also featured … Mike Lord (drums and keyboards, now of Stars and Sons), Jon Wood (bass, now of Epideme), Matt Hayward (guitar, now of Favours For Sailors), Sam Moore (guitar, now studying for a Masters in Philosophy) , Alex Lovell (drums, now concentrating on the final year of a BA in French and Spanish), Ilja Gray (drums, now in Australia), Ben Pruess (drums, now in the USA), Alex Ames (guitar, now in Japan), and a few other rockers for a few shows here and there. None of the current lineup have any plans to leave the country, return to full time education, or leave to join a different cool band!

To date the band has released two singles through two DIY indie labels, ‘Forever on the Edge’, on October 29th 2007 through Alcopop!, and Change The Record / Ideal Man, on April 21st 2008 through This Is Fake DIY. Both were limited to 500 copies, but a few copies of each still remain, and can be purchased via the website of the respective labels.

In 2008 the band started to record debut album Empty, Derivative Pop Songs with Ian Button (guitarist in Death in Vegas) which is scheduled to be released on October 26th 2009. You can see full details of this in the news and releases pages.

Top DJs Huw Stephens and Steve Lamacq have remained fans since first hearing the band in Summer 2007. Forever On The Edge was single of the week on Lamacq’s Radio 1 show, and Change The Record / Ideal Man on his BBC 6music show, for which Dan was invited in to record a live interview as Lamacq’s ‘New Favourite Band’. The band has also recorded a three song live session at Maida Vale studios for Huw Stephens which is streamable at their MySpace.

Both Forever On The Edge, and Change The Record / Ideal Man, (as well as a number of live shows) have picked up a stack of superlative-laden reviews from the likes of Rocksound, The Fly, Music Week, Drowned In Sound, Subba Cultcha, Organ Art, Rockfeedback, and many more webzines and blogs from all over the world. The band was recently awarded ‘Best Unsigned Indie/Rock act 2008’ by Playmusic magazine, and is set to be tipped as one of the main acts to look out for in 2009 by the NME in their first issue of the year.

Dan Ormsby also has some acoustic tracks up on his own MySpace page (http://www.myspace.com/danormsby)

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