Music Review: Xenia Rubinos, Magic Trix

By Chelsea Spear

On Magic Trix, Xenia Rubinos sounds like a radio caught between two frequencies. The first station carries brassy 1930s show tunes, a capella field recordings of folk songs, multi-tracked choruses, and lushly melodic whispered confessions. On the other, psychedelic keyboard freakouts, skittering drums, thumping hardcore declarations, and a cacophony of characters rule the day. Binding the disparate styles together is a soupçon of feedback from an analog keyboard and Rubinos’s force of nature vocals.

Rubinos first catches your ear with her nimble, reedy alto. Though her ability to shift between head and chest voice shows that she could go head to head with any of today’s singers, her focus on staying true to the song keep her from throwing in any of the showboating melismata or scales runs that have sadly become de rigueur in mainstream music today. On songs like the title track, she sings with the cadences of a poet, weighing each word as she sings it.

Between her ingratiating personality and her poetic lyrics, Rubinos assumes the perspectives of women who society ignores. Her lyrical focus on unusual details and her subjective point of view make these characters ever more palpable for her audience. “Magic Trix,” the opening track, finds Rubinos giving voice to a spiritual healer, but instead of focusing on the exotic and supernatural, she speaks of her subject’s homelessness and fear of abandoning her children.

The warm, minimalist production and Rubinos’s gift for ambitious yet memorable melodies give the album a throwback feel. The fat tones of an analog synth drive her production, which sometimes makes her songs sound like outtakes from 1970s kids’ TV shows. Her love of feedback and her ability to switch from Motown-worthy songs to staccato with the grace of Steve McQueen rounding a blind corner keeps her songs from sounding like museum relics.

At times, Rubinos’s experiments don’t quite pay off, as on the thrashy hardcore call-and-response “Pan Y Café.” Magic Trix starts to feel draggy in the second half, as the songs get a little less cohesive and more redundant. (As lovely as “Café Con Leche” is, do we really need two a capella renderings of traditional folk songs?) However, looking upon the album as a sonic diary that chronicles her growth and willingness to step outside her musical comfort zone helps to mitigate the frustration of the last few tracks.

The thrill of this album is listening to an up-and-coming artist who has yet to be pigeonholed, who is working within and subverting diverse musical genres and seeing what fits her abilities and her perspective. Rubinos clearly has fantastic musical skills, and the way she balances what she’s learned with her omnivorous interests makes this a thrilling listen. Get on this one, because Xenia Rubinos is going some exciting places.

Magic Trix was released through Ba Da Bing! Records on April 30. You can buy it directly from the label’s website.

Tour Dates (with Lady Lamb the Beekeeper):
May 13: The Drake; Toronto, ON
May 14: Schubas Tavern; Chicago, IL
May 16: Magic Stick Lounge; Detroit, MI
May 17: Garfield Artworks; Pittsburgh, PA
May 18: The Basement; Columbus, OH
May 19: Beachland Tavern; Cleveland, OH
May 20: Black Cat Backstage; Washington, DC