Guitarist Adam Miller was a founding member of Johnny Jewel's great and frustrating Italo-disco crew Chromatics, and he spent two decades in that band. His tenure ended in 2021, when the non-Johnny Jewel members announced that Chromatics were done. Jeff Schroeder, another guitarist, had a 16-year run as a member of Smashing Pumpkins, and it ended when he amicably left the band in 2023. In 2024, Miller and Schroeder met through mutual friends in LA, and they decided to start a new project together. Now, they're a duo called Inner Magic, and their first two tracks are out today.
Today, Inner Magic introduce themselves with one original and one cover. The original is a lovely, spacey hazy track called "Underground." It's got lead vocals from Adam Miller and his former Chromatics bandmate Ruth Radelet, who now records as a solo artist. The song doesn't really sound like Chromatics, but it has some of that old gauzy float to it. Good song! Inner Magic have paired that track with a cover of Spacemen 3's great 1991 song "Feelin' Just Fine," and that choice underlines an influence that's already pretty obvious when you hear "Underground." Olive Kimoto sings backup on that one.
Here's what Jeff Schroeder says about Inner Magic in a press release:
After leaving Smashing Pumpkins, I felt I had reached the end of me working within the framework of a band. Finding true artistic chemistry with others has to happen naturally and can be rather elusive. Fortunately, this hasn’t been the case. Working with Adam over the last year has been one of the happiest musical periods of my life, and I’m thrilled to begin sharing our music with others.
And here's what Adam Miller has to say for himself:
Collaborating with Jeff is like a musical conversation where we are continually bouncing and building ideas off of each other. We tend to spend just as much time drinking coffee, talking about books and artists we love, as we do working on music. But when we get to working, ideas quickly materialize out of thin air, and the music that happens just feels right.
Inner Magic and friends shot their own video for "Underground." Check out that clip and the "Feelin' Just Fine" cover below.
