Dark Magic, a debut single by Ashley Rae: When love becomes a curse and every heartbeat sounds like a spell.

Editorial Board
Oct 11
2 min read

Ashley Rae channels heartbreak into a haunting, celestial ritual — a love song that lingers like smoke after the flame.

Rising artist Ashley Rae’s Dark Magic feels less like a song and more like a séance, a moment where love, memory, and obsession blur into one.

Written by Ashley Rae and produced by Doris Banovic, the track captures that eerie space between devotion and doom, where desire becomes ritual and every breath sounds like an invocation.

The song opens with a quiet synth line and a steady drum beat with piano, acoustic guitar strums ache: “I remember the moonlight in your eyes / When you told me you loved me.” Rae writes not from heartbreak, but from haunting, she isn’t mourning what’s gone; she’s trapped by what remains. Her vocals glide over Banovic’s shimmering synth layers like smoke through candlelight, fragile yet inescapable.

Each chorus drives the spell deeper:“That boy cast a spell on me / Now it’s my own fate I can’t see.”It’s a hypnotic mantra, a hook that lingers like perfume in a dark room. The repetition works as emotional hypnosis, by the time the last “call it dark magic” fades, you’ve been fully drawn in.

Banovic’s production deserves equal credit for the song’s pull. The minimalist percussion, subtle reverb, and otherworldly textures create an atmosphere that feels both intimate and cosmic. There’s tension in every pause, a cinematic stillness that makes each lyric land heavier. It’s the kind of production that doesn’t chase modern pop trends; it builds its own haunted cathedral.

Lyrically, Rae dances on that thin edge between romance and ruin. “Entranced by those pretty blue eyes / And the sweet things you told me” reads like a spellbook entry written in ink and regret. Later, the song takes a turn inward — “Now I don’t know who I’m meant to be / Without you I didn’t stand a chance.” It’s not just heartbreak; it’s identity erosion, a love so consuming it rewires the soul.

The final verse, “Whisper my name and I’m yours / We dance to a tune unknown” — brings the story full circle. What began as enchantment ends in surrender. There’s no escape, but Rae doesn’t want one. That’s the brilliance of Dark Magic: it captures how willingly we let love destroy us when it feels celestial enough.

Ashely Rae has always leaned toward introspection, but here she finds her boldest voice. Her performance is both spellbinding and cinematic — the kind of delivery that feels tailor-made for late-night drives or dim-lit rooms where you’re still trying to forget someone who left their shadow behind.

With Dark Magic, Ashley Rae doesn’t just write about love gone wrong. She builds an altar to it.