First became aware of the Magik Markers through their release on Ecstatic Peace and the hype that began to accumulate after being endorsed by Sonic Youth et al.
I bought I Trust My Guitar etc. from a Volcanic Tongue stall at the Subcurrent noise festival in Glasgow, 2005. Initial spins left me bemused - the record struck me as willfully unlistenable, pre-articulate and primal in the most complacent way... Although there was something beautiful lingering beneath that began to reveal itself gradually, with subsequent listens.
I recently discovered via an interview with Pete Nolan that Ecstatic Peace label boss, Thurston Moore, was not keen on the record himself and they really had to persuade him to release it...
Anyway, despite my initial discombobulated response I remained intrigued by this band, especially with the live video clips that kept appearing on the Ecstatic Peace website and the interviews with singer/guitar torturer Elisa Ambrogio. Her banter struck me as completely inspired stream of thought beatnik/punk poetics sans the unsavoury hippy free love sensibility. The live clips displayed a woman in the depths of feral possession, assaulting audience members as well as her instrument and shrieking like a banshee. Placid interludes were eerie, Elisa murmuring in somanmbulent confessionary mode, her tone disconcertingly reminiscent of a sulking child trapped in an implosive vortex of delayed guitars, the echo an abstract reconstruction of sad basment childhood.
I became increasingly obsessed with the band and ordered all the stock they had from Volcanic Tongue: to wit, the NxCxHxC LP, the Feel the Crayon CD-R and a live CD-R.
Both CD-Rs impressed me to some degree but the NxCxHxC LP I dug special. Kicks off with a harcore jam, Nolan propulsing the band forward with tight, succinct fills... guitars chug along whilst Elisa introduces the band. The whole structure is teetering though and is barely established before disintegrating into furious feedback tantrums and guitar/electric toothbrush experiments of the highest order. This record also delves into more creeped out ambient menace... no... not menace exactly... but there is something eerie and detached about the folorn non-musical moments evoked on this vinyl... something infinite as well, taking a slow walk along the beach to greet eternity.
I finally saw Magik Markers live in December of last year at All Tommorrow's Parties. They performed as a duo; Leah Quimby had left the band by that point... a fact which already had instilled me with cautious reservations... reservations which proved to be somewhat well founded.
What I witnessed at ATP was undeniably a good, solid set. Elisa was sporting a white t-shirt which she had marker penned the statement "I am mellow." I initially read this as "I am yellow" which I interpreted as some sort of dadaist non-sequiter...
Their set struck me as carefully constructed, almost tentative at times... Nolan began assembling a fragmentary beat over Elisa's phased guitar ruminations... Elisa's vocals were sub-audible murmurs. Audience chatter was incessant, a complaint I held for most of the performances at ATP and this doubtless affected the atmosphere of the set for me... The band seemed detached from the chattering audience and I felt sad, as if I should have been witnessing something life-affirming but instead was seeing the inconsequential last days of the band being played out... I guess I have a tendency towards meleodrama in many respects...
My interest in the group diminished somewhat after that, until last week. I had begun perusing ebay quite frequently again, picking up reasonably priced CDs and records. I scored a couple of Magik Markers records at a bargain price, two records which I had been hesitant to splash out full price on but seemed worth picking up cheap: Inverted Belgium and For Sada Jane.
For Sada Jane, on Textile records was widely hailed as a surprising departure for the band on its initial release, a heralding which left me unduly nervous. This is a fantastic slab of wax, picking up on the more careful, measured approach the band seem to be favouring more and more. Sharp slices of wah-wah guitar sound like thunder cutting up violet skies. This record really confirms in my mind the Markers as an organic noise rock band, a band with a lot more feeling and musical sensitivity than initial listens may offer up. There are also some more of Elisa's howled poetics about shitty haircuts in public and marrying Laurie Anderson. Always leaves a thrilled grin on my face.
But for me, the real gravy is the one sided Inverted Belgium LP which is on Prurient's label, Hospital Productions, and is mastered by Prurient himself who has sonically doctored it from its original CD-R form into something all the more insiduously depraved in keeping with his serial killer persona... Growling bass and piercing high-end are emphasised which gives this record a murky power electronics aesthetic whilst retaining the emotional storm of noise rock. The whole thing is all whirlwind and heat, flashing through yr consciousness like a violently unsettling fever dream. Urgent percussive propulsion by Nolan anchors the similarly propulsive guitar attack which is apocalyptic and unrelenting. Truly one of the best records I've ever heard by anyone and it has re-established the Markers in my mind as one of the best bands in the world.
