Majical Cloudz “Bugs Don’t Buzz”

07 May 2013 — Trey Reis

In a tumblr post describing the history of “Bugs Don’t Buzz,” Majical Cloudz’s Devon Walsh explains: “I wrote a version of it on piano in 2008 when I was nineteen, but then forgot about it until my friend found it on my computer a few years later. Then for a long while after that I lost confidence in my ability to write songs, and during this time my friend used “Bugs Don’t Buzz” as an example of why I had made beautiful things and shouldn’t be so hard on myself.”

With a track like “Bugs Don’t Buzz,” getting the whole story of its history only adds to the songs already stripped-down and exposed quality. With only a piano loop and Walsh’s clean vocals to carry it forward, the song is a stark contrast from much of the hazy, maximalist R&B that has been popping up in mass across the Internet over the past 2 years. Walsh’s approach to R&B is much more direct than his colleagues, hiding less behind the infinite, glowing layers of the computer screen. The result is something closer to the genre’s predecessors of decades past, where the lone voice on top of everything else is still the primary mouthpiece for the soul, direct and unfiltered.

With the one-two punch of “Childhood’s End” and “Bugs Don’t Buzz” to hype his upcoming Impersonator full-length out May 21 on Matador Records, Walsh’s voice is ringing out clearer than ever.

“This might end with a smile."