Mrs. Magician has been one of San Diego’s best kept secrets up until recently. Having released only a handful of 7-inches between them, along with singer/guitarist/songwriter Jacob Turnbloom’s 30-track cassette of bedroom-recorded songs, their first full length, Strange Heaven, was rush-released on Swami Records when a tour with Cults was announced (with Mrs. Magician’s Cory Stier drumming for both bands). They also toured with the reunited Hot Snakes earlier this summer and have been enjoying the success from their debut since. “We’re chill,” they tell me via email.

Hesitant to call them indie power pop for the sweeping generalizations one might conjure from that, their songs really are insanely catchy with clever and well-constructed lyrics to boot — inspired, according to Turnbloom, by rock & roll music, 50s television and 80s horror franchise films, not to mention his past relationships. Having a voice eerily similar to a pre-batshit Brian Wilson doesn’t help the comparisons to the Beach Boys (crooning “Women’s prison/That’s where my baby lives…” is on point), as well as the Zombies, surf rock, “the California sound,” et cetera.

The future of Mrs. Magician (a name that references a Chinese meal in Toronto, or a conversation Turnbloom had with Bess Houdini, depending on who you ask) looks bright, with a slew of US shows and festivals coming up, an overseas tour that’s in the works, and two more 7-inches (one of which is a split with Cults side project Census) on the way.

“We are constantly writing and recording new material, as well as performing and making art in various projects,” they tell me, adding: “The idea for Mrs Magician is to take her to the next logical place, some place stranger and more promising than heaven, maybe Bermuda?”