Sonic Youth Gossip - View Single Post - Magik Markers

Moshe · 08.15.2007, 12:27 AM

http://lineout.thestranger.com/2007/...agik_markers_b

Song Illegal Leak of the Week: Magik Markers, Boss Posted by Sam Machkovech on August 14 at 12:34 PM

Used to be, you had to trip at least a few balls to dig what Magik Markers were smoking. The immature sludge, noise and cackling that composed the Hartford, CT band’s limited releases on such labels as Thurston Moore’s Ecstatic Peace was certainly better suited for a sweaty stage than the home hi-fi. And even then, their buck-wild performances didn’t exactly make up for Jandek-ian guitars and histrionic yelps.
Last week, my most trusted stoner-droner of a buddy insisted over IM that I give the Markers’ new leaked record a shot, assuring me that Boss “actually has songs.” And wouldn’t you know it—my buddy was sober for long enough to type the truth. The material on this album is so captivating, I’ve barely touched the other candidates for leak of the week, choosing instead to sit with my hi-fi and dwell in the psych-drone cave of singer/guitarist/pianist Elisa Ambrogio.
Sonic Youth comparisons will come by the dozen with Lee Ranaldo’s name attached as producer, and with Ambrogio’s talk-and-cry vocals sounding the faintest bit like Kim Gordon, but the two acts’ avant-rock similarities end there. Boss is a neo-psych zig to SY’s art-punk zag, and the spare sound of Ambrogio’s guitar compositions, occasionally supplanted with thudding piano and lingering, background feedback, lends her poetry an appropriate sense of isolation. Nine-minute opus “Last of the Lemach Line” unravels by the minute, starting with somber singing and effortless strums and eventually descending into an explosion of feedback, cymbals and strained cries that make Ambrogio sound like she’s been pinned to a cross—“My mouth is open to show I’m hungry, all that peace just aches for the enemy, I stare crazy at things like they don’t see, I’m going to eat them up before they eat me.” Unlike similar, Velvet-loving groups of late like the Black Angels, this duo casts drone apathy to the side so they can heap on tension and make the noise tell a story of its own.
Mark your calendars for their October 10 show at Neumo’s; something tells me the duo’s sloppy, buck-wild nature hasn’t gone away yet, but at least fans will have actual songs to request.

08.15.2007, 12:27 AM	#32
Moshe Super Moderator Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 5,862	http://lineout.thestranger.com/2007/...agik_markers_b *Song Illegal Leak of the Week: Magik Markers, Boss* Posted by Sam Machkovech on August 14 at 12:34 PM Used to be, you had to trip at least a few balls to dig what Magik Markers were smoking. The immature sludge, noise and cackling that composed the Hartford, CT band’s limited releases on such labels as Thurston Moore’s Ecstatic Peace was certainly better suited for a sweaty stage than the home hi-fi. And even then, their buck-wild performances didn’t exactly make up for Jandek-ian guitars and histrionic yelps*. Last week, my most trusted stoner-droner of a buddy insisted over IM that I give the Markers’ new leaked record a shot, assuring me that Boss* “actually has songs.” And wouldn’t you know it—my buddy was sober for long enough to type the truth. The material on this album is so captivating, I’ve barely touched the other candidates for leak of the week, choosing instead to sit with my hi-fi and dwell in the psych-drone cave of singer/guitarist/pianist Elisa Ambrogio. Sonic Youth comparisons will come by the dozen with Lee Ranaldo’s name attached as producer, and with Ambrogio’s talk-and-cry vocals sounding the faintest bit like Kim Gordon, but the two acts’ avant-rock similarities end there. Boss is a neo-psych zig to SY’s art-punk zag, and the spare sound of Ambrogio’s guitar compositions, occasionally supplanted with thudding piano and lingering, background feedback, lends her poetry an appropriate sense of isolation. Nine-minute opus “Last of the Lemach Line” unravels by the minute, starting with somber singing and effortless strums and eventually descending into an explosion of feedback, cymbals and strained cries that make Ambrogio sound like she’s been pinned to a cross—“My mouth is open to show I’m hungry, all that peace just aches for the enemy, I stare crazy at things like they don’t see, I’m going to eat them up before they eat me.” Unlike similar, Velvet-loving groups of late like the Black Angels, this duo casts drone apathy to the side so they can heap on tension and make the noise tell a story of its own. Mark your calendars for their October 10 show at Neumo’s; something tells me the duo’s sloppy, buck-wild nature hasn’t gone away yet, but at least fans will have actual songs to request.
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