Surf Rock Review: Magnatech! - 312 Magnatech Fans Can’t Be Wrong

Release Date: July 17, 2025

Magnatech! Facebook Page

Label: Constituent Records

Guest Review by Jimmy Dee 

The advantage of being a one-man band is that you know exactly what’s going on with your “fellow musicians”; the disadvantage is that no one is there to restrain you if you go over the top.

 

Magnatech is the one-man music project of Dutchman Johannes B. Verhoef, and as soon as he plugs in his electric guitar, he’s unstoppable. On his seventh album, 312 Magnatech Fans Can’t Be Wrong, eighteen bombastic bangers ripple through the grooves, delivering an up-tempo surf guitar sound submerged in the breakwater noises of a cranked-up tube reverb. The solo entertainer doesn’t have to listen to bandmates telling him to turn his guitar down during rehearsal. This is surf, man!  

 

The title of the album alludes to the slogan of the 1962 hit collection Elvis’ Golden Records – Volume II. While Elvis Presley had “50 million fans”, who were clearly not wrong, Magnatech has at least “312”. This figure may also refer to record sales. Be that as it may, the borrowed title is an understatement that suggests this artist should not be underestimated.

 

The industrious sound tinkerer Verhoef plays all the instruments himself and has developed a multi-track recording process that faithfully recreates the sound of an early-sixties combo gone off the rails. His dedication to his craft is evident in every note, and how he achieves this is his well-kept secret.

 

As with all Magnatech releases, the new album is strongly conceptualized, full of eclectic ideas and associative playfulness. It exhibits the eccentric whims of a pronounced sentimentalist. The titles of the instrumental pieces are not only intended to evoke images and inspire the listener’s imagination; the artist himself has attached strong associations to them, mainly relating to the everyday culture of past decades or old films, as well as to current affairs (“On the Waves of Disinformatia”).

 

The artist has an unusual penchant of naming songs after famous people as a mark of admiration. With “Ladi Geisler”, he pays homage to the German jazz and studio guitarist Ladi Geisler, whose “Knackbass” was a decisive influence on the irresistible sound of the Bert Kaempfert Orchestra. However, there is no trace of this in the recording. Instead, a renowned name contributes to the fascination of an artistic vision.

 

Gimmicky noises such as whip cracking, rescue sirens, muezzin prayers, flies buzzing, and cows mooing are used by Verhoef to enhance the multidimensional stereo listening experience and add variety to the soundscape. These unconventional sounds are a testament to his experimental approach – only Pink Floyd used more of them.

 

Although Magnatech has primarily leased the surf genre, surf culture itself is often only featured marginally, such as in emergencies (“Surf Ambulance”), on days of penance (“Surf Apostle”), or concerning water shyness (“The Water’s Too Cold To Surf”). Didn’t Jack O’Neill invent the wetsuit in 1952?

 

The music itself is far more reckless, appearing to be played with bold impetuosity. In almost every song (four of which have already been released on the 2024 EP Tanzkapelle) Verhoef strums the strings masterfully in a mandolin style that is so characteristic of surf music. Alongside the dominant guitar thunderstorm, there is often little room for dynamic variation among the accompanying instruments. The programmed drums are rigid, and drum rolls sometimes resemble the noise techno of Rotterdam gabber.

 

Undoubtedly, the unbridled energy of surf music was given preference over composed pieces. The album features many exciting melodic approaches. However, sometimes the voice leading is not rounded off and leads nowhere on the fretboard. Not even a nimbly inserted drum roll can disguise this. As a result, much remains piecemeal. A track like “Camazotz” (named after the fearsome bat god of the Mexican Maya people) could almost have become a modern classic of the surf genre.

 

Special mention must go to the rhythmically accelerated instrumental cover of Kyu Sakamoto’s Asian ballad “Sukiyaki”, with which the singer from Kawasaki achieved the first – and, to date, only – Japanese number one hit in the US in 1963.

 

As a true whizz kid, Verhoef didn’t even outsource the artwork. Left to his own devices, he designed the album cover himself. To this end, he used AI-generated images depicting him as a pig mafia boss. Magnatech fans will find the pointed pig ears amusing. They are undoubtedly helpful for a loud listening experience.

Track List:

01. Surf Apostle

02. Desolation Angels

03. Surf Ambulance

04. Lilith

05. Camazotz

06. Anna Loos

07. Our Mother Anatolia (türk savaş marşı)

08. Agent Fruitfly

09. Aurora Borealis

10. Ladi Geisler

11. La Lupiada

12. Sukiyaki

13. On the Waves of Disinformatia

14. Lago di Constanza

15. Manchuria

16. Holy Cow!

17. La plus belle fille du village

18. The Water’s Too Cold To Surf