FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Music

Press Pause on Your Life and Play Computer Magic's "Dimensions"

The DJ/producer/solo artist returns with this wistful sigh of a song.

Photo by Chad Kamenshine

If Stereolab, Emmy the Great, and Neon Indian were Frankensteined the result would be something like Danielle Johnson, a Catskills-born producer and recording artist who makes music as Computer Magic. She spent years as a fixture on the NYC nightlife scene as a teen DJ going by the name Danz, then dropped out of college and started making music withe her midi controller and her computer. She's particularly revered in Japan; she likes to wear NASA space suits. Since 2010 she's released a bunch of EPs and last year's debut LP Davos (Gary Numan fans get involved!) and below is the premiere of her new song, "Dimensions," lifted from her forthcoming EP Obscure But Visible. "Life is short but love is long / Take a breath and carry on," she exhales wistfully over canned beats and dancing synth lines. There's a pinch of "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots."

"The song 'Dimensions' was inspired by my recent time spent in upstate New York—the intense skies at night, the infinite green fields," she explains. "When you're lying on the grass in the middle of nowhere looking up at the stars, you realize how small your place is in the universe, and in turn your current problems tend to fade away if only for a moment. I suppose the lyrics are about this, the feeling I experience looking up at the stars."

Better find a glad to recline in, tip your head back and press play.