--Reviews--

The mood set up by the shrine, surrounded by candles, on the album cover is exactly the mood of the album itself, Orphan Harmony. The duo that is Magic Apron, Joanna Bajandas and David McClung, sound like they’re alone in candlelight, among the shadows, playing their guitars and singing to each other. There’s something of Low or Damon and Naomi about them, yet they’re more direct, more pop. They sound like they’re trying to cast a glow out of the speakers, and at that they absolutely succeed, but they also sound like they have something to say, something to get off their hearts.

I use “heart” not as a cliché, but because the album seems like a personal statement of love and hope – “dedicated to our friends and family”, according to the album notes, and by relation to humanity. Hope is tricky. It’d be easy to come off as corny with sentiment like “Ours”’ line “If all the little pretty things would wake up / and put on their wings / it would all be okay.” But nothing about that line, or this album, strikes me as the least bit corny given their approach to it. Nothing rings a false note. To these songs there’s tenderness, humility, and – perhaps most important – gorgeous melodies, singing and guitar-playing. The music is minimalist, letting each note transport. It’s spacey in pleasant ways (with the guitars occasionally carrying us off into the waves), yet also at times driving and urgent, like on “Tender Ghosts”, where they sound not like they’re singing to the darkness but like they want everyone in the world to hear them. “It’s gone to bed this town you said,” yet it sounds like they’re trying with all their might to wake it up. But wake everyone up gently, to something beautiful. -David Heaton ERASING CLOUDS

CD OF THE MONTHSeptember 2007
"Orphan Harmony is the embodiment of what a therapeutic indie-folk record is meant to be. McClung and Bajandas croon in unison over humble acoustics to produce a mellow, transcendental musical escape.....the ideal soundtrack to anyone's REM sleep...Orphan Harmony is meant to be played in it's entirety, in the most ambient of settings...(the) collaboration is organic, pure, and absolutely delightful...nothing short of sweet serenity." -Nelly Khalil PERFORMER MAGAZINE


"Meanwhile, July's Discovery of the Month has to be Magic Apron, a transcendent duo consisting of singers David McClung and Joanna Bajandas. Sure, we were impressed with David before, when the multi-instrumentalist went under the moniker Thesoulraydio, but this is on a whole other level. Orphan Harmony, their debut on New Street Records, bathes us in sparse, spatial stringwork and electronics under vocal harmonies that are near-heavenly, the whole affair seemingly dawning spontaneously out of nature itself. It's a beaut."-JEFF CLARK/STOMP AND STAMMER

Hiding amid the flickering acoustic glide and the warm male/female croon of Magic Apron's Orphan Harmony lies a wolf in sheep's clothing. Each song unfolds with candle-lit intimacy, painting a picture of a safe and sound 4 a.m. as the last fleeting moments of consciousness slip away. But while the dreamy and love-stricken atmosphere that billows from the opening song "Bells in Our Fingernails" sets the tone for the rest of the album, it does not last. As songs such as "Dahlia" and "Jackknife Swan" sink deeper into comfortable oblivion, the hint of danger swells. -Chad Radford/CREATIVE LOAFING