Magic Wands Talk Cascades, Their John Ashton Collaboration, and What Comes Next

Transmission 367: Interview with Magic Wands

Magic Wands are a Los Angeles-based dream-pop duo formed in Nashville by vocalists and guitarists Dexy and Chris Valentine. Their sound draws on shoegaze, post-punk, and goth, built around heavily textured guitars, synth drones, and ethereal vocals. Their sixth album, Cascades, was released in October 2025, imbued with centuries-old poetry, gothic romance, and myth, and includes the singles Hide, Armour, Moonshadow, Across the Water, and Time to Dream.

Title: Wishing Well
Artist: Magic Wands
Release Date: 2026-04-24
Genres: Dream Pop, Gothic Rock, Post-punk, Shoegaze
Label: Metropolis Records
Description: Magic Wands interview: the LA duo talk Sacred Mirrors with John Ashton, the Wishing Well EP, and a new album in progress.

The duo have recently released a new single, Sacred Mirrors, recorded in collaboration with guitarist John Ashton, a founding member of The Psychedelic Furs who appeared on all seven of the band’s albums between 1980 and 1991. Ashton discovered Magic Wands through a mutual contact, later citing Across the Water as a particular point of inspiration. He sent the band an instrumental track; Dexy added vocals and lyrics, Chris added guitar, then produced and mixed the finished song. The result is, in Dexy’s words, a piece about “reflections and dreaming of endless possibilities,” oriented toward a more uplifting register than the heavier tone of Cascades and its predecessor Switch.

In between, the duo released the Wishing Well EP, gathering leftover tracks from the Cascades sessions alongside fresh mixes of Golden and Hide. A new album is currently in progress.

How did Magic Wands first come together and what drew you to each other as creative partners?

[Dexy] I just think we have a similar background in music and we were fans of each other’s music.

[Chris Valentine] I thought Dexy had a great voice and I thought we could really make some good music if we got together.

How has moving between cities shaped the music you make?

[Dexy] I don’t think we get a lot of inspiration from the cities that we live in. It’s more like we create sort of an imaginary world in our music. We could probably be in any city and it would be the same.

Which artists or records were most formative to you?

[Dexy] A lot of 80s goth and post-punk bands. Chris, I don’t know about you — surf rock?

[Chris] Yeah, I listened to a lot of surf music and 50s music was a big influence. Anything with guitars but also electronic drums.

How did the collaboration with John Ashton on Sacred Mirrors come about and how did you approach building on his contribution?

[Dexy] Someone that we did an interview with knew him and mentioned to us that he liked us and mentioned a potential collab with him. So then we started talking to him and he sent us a basic guitar and drum track with some keyboards. Chris played guitar on it and I sang — that’s kind of how it came about.

[Chris] It was really fast.

What was the starting point for the Wishing Well EP?

[Dexy] We had a couple of leftover songs from our last record that didn’t come out. So we put those together and we wanted to do some fresh updated mixes on Golden and Hide, which were also on the EP and were originally from the album. It’s kind of just a little in-between thing because we’re in the middle of making another album that should be done very soon.

What drew you to the imagery of a Wishing Well as a title and theme for the EP?

[Dexy] That came from… I was at a wedding one summer and there was a big Wishing Well in the outside area where I was sitting. I wrote the song Wishing Well about being at this Wishing Well, and then we named the EP after that.

Can you talk about the process of remixing your own material and what you look for in a remix?

[Chris] When we remix, I like to take the original idea and make it a little more immediate sounding. A lot of our music is very dreamy and kind of fantasy-like, but for the remixes I like to imagine it more on a dance floor or something, with a more immediate energy.

[Dexy] More movement.

[Chris] We like to change the bass sounds to be more like a synthesizer bass, electronic bass — instead of a real bass that we play when we record our original tracks.

You write together. Is it simultaneous or does one of you typically bring in a starting point to the other?

[Dexy] It’s always spontaneous together.

[Chris] Yeah, we write everything together pretty much all the time. We usually do a couple of songs in a day or something.

What has been influencing you outside of music lately — art, literature, politics or elsewhere?

[Dexy] Definitely not politics. For me, I watch a lot of 90s movies. The last record we put out, Cascades — the one before Wishing Well — we’re still kind of in that same world and we’re just listening to it and seeing where we want to go from there. It’s like a starting point, it’s themed, kind of old world sort of sound.

[Chris] I think we get a lot of inspiration when we just go outside and go to the beach or something. We seem to write a lot more after we get home, as opposed to reading poetry or watching movies.

[Dexy] Yeah, I do read books and poetry. I’m sure that filters into the inspiration.

Are you working on a new album?

[Dexy] Yeah, we’re working on a new album.

Photos courtesy of Magic Wands

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