home of magnet | media

press

Hold On

cover of Hold On

NME | August 2005

You can count on your Scandinavian types to make odd pop while remembering that you need a good song in there somewhere and ‘Hod On’, being wrought by Norwegians, is a prime example of this. For a start, it has banjos, occasional theremin-esque keyboard, an unexpectedly huge chorus full of strings and cymbal crashes and a similarly strange Beach Boys-y bit at the end. Strange though it is, it is sad, tender and thoroughly lovely, inciting one to fly to Oslo just to give the singer the cuddle that he so obviously needs.

Manchester Online | August 12, 2005 | by Simon Donohue | 4/5

A VERY apt title from the Norwegian singer songwriter which is Magnet.

Jump to rash conclusions, and you’ll be leaping immediately for the buttons marked Stop/Eject on your CD player.

Hold On, however, and you’ll discover an abstract kind of talent who brings Bjork to mind.

This latest single is an ethereal mix of lo-fi beeps and amblings, with Magnet – aka Even Johansen – singing in his unique style over the top.

[direct link]

Losing Today | July 27, 2005

Okay imagine those drip dried chill out soundscapes that lushly adorned Goldfrapp’s ‘Felt Mountain’ are the universe, and in a tiny corner of that universe you could, if you scrunched up your eyes, see both the Earlies and Tuung doing choreographed celestial cartwheels to a backdrop whose template vision was to take Butler and McAlmont’s heart stopping near pop perfection personified ‘Yes’ and work into it the tipsy banjo moments from the score of ‘Once upon a time in the West’ and then get Brian Wilson to oversee the whole operation. Then as a final icing decorate it with an exquisite ethereal and emotion wrenching glow – the resulting epic ladies and gentleman would not sound a million miles away from this trippily symphonic honey combed delicacy. What Magnet (Even Johansen) has ventured here is a modern pop classic for ‘Hold on’ is a rollercoater of emotional high’s, low’s, hopes and falls all distilled into a perfect bite sized portion of easily the most exhilarating three and a half minutes you’ll hear all year – and with a full length entitled ‘the Tourniquet’ to follow shortly who’d bet against it being an albums worth of tiny pop miracles.

[direct link]