FARAO – Magical Thinking – LP – Vinyl [OCT 31]

Description

LP – Standard Edition Black Vinyl.

Magical Thinking, Faraos third studio album, unfolds as a layered journey through loss, longing, and transformation. Evoking the title and spirit of Joan Didions The Year of Magical Thinking, it moves through the quiet terrain between denial and acceptancewhere grief is not solved, but carried. These are songs of rebuilding and resilience, shaped by themes of grief, motherhood, and the essential rituals that sustain us when clarity fades.

Recorded between Oslo and Berlin, the album pulses with 90s R&B flair, 80s disco shimmer, and the contemplative sweep of spiritual jazzanchored throughout by Faraos intimate vocals and intricate arrangements. From the opening shimmer of Waiting for You, where heartbreak is dressed in sequins and a groove evokes Robyn and Chaka Khan, the record invites us into a world where longing is made luminous.
On Spiritual Garden, named after a fleeting Janet Jackson lyric, Farao crafts a humid, narcotic R&B reverie. Timbaland-style percussion and silky basslines cradle her zithers unexpected textures, conjuring a meditation on abandonment and the fragile reclamation of self-worth. When Dreamy Ride glides inwhere Aaliyahs cool meets Dorothy Ashbys cosmic harpthe album slips into nocturnal motion, an R&B fantasia for 2 a.m. city drives, her zither weaving through the mix like a guiding star.
The playful synth-jam Hey Ladies and a bold reinterpretation of Brandys Full Moon lighten the mood midway through. The former is a cheeky, one-minute homage to Destinys Child; the latter, a nighttime elegy that drapes a beloved classic in deep bass and glimmering synths. Then comes Xiang Xiang, an intimate interlude built around a whispered voice-note from a friendreminding us of the real-world bonds grounding Faraos lush sonic universe.

At the albums center is the title track Magical Thinking, which directly references Didions memoir. Here, pulsing synths and drifting vocals trace the blurred terrain between presence and dissociation. Its followed by Endelig (finally in Norwegian), a deep exhalea minimal, spiritual jazz interlude that offers the illusion of resolution. Farao then teams up with ambient pioneer Laraaji for Voice Continues, a spacious, fourth-world-inspired meditation where zither, layered vocals, and synth textures form a sonic tapestry mapping the lingering traces of maternal love across generations.
Tschssi (a breezy German goodbye) becomes a vessel for something far weightier: a farewell laced with looping memory and emotional disorientation, built around a ghostly fragment from Faraos track Marry Me. The album closes on a hazy, merciful note with Sleep It Off, a lullaby for the overwhelmeda final permission to rest, to let go, to simply lie down. Not a promise of healing, but a compassionate pause in a record defined by yearning and illusion.

RIYL: Erika de Casier, Tirzah, Sade, Kelela, Qendresa, Caroline Polachek, Solange

Tracklist:

01. Waiting For You [3:37]
02. Spiritual Garden [3:48]
03. Dreamy Ride [3:58]
04. Hey Ladies [1:14]
05. Full Moon [4:26]
07. Magical Thinking [3:33]
06. Xiang Xiang [0:20
08. Endelig [1:33]
09. Voice Continues [4:20]
10. Tschssi [3:36]
11. Sleep It Off [1:33]