[Moshe]

I'm really looking forward for this one. Here is a first review:

http://www.uncut.co.uk/blog/index.php?blog=6&title=magik_markers_boss&more=1&c =1&tb=1&pb=1

Magik Markers' "Boss"

2007-07-31 16:58:40
Yep, I guess it's that Ecstatic Peace time of the week again. Today's offering from Thurston Moore's imprint - maybe my favourite label of 2007, certainly the one I've written about most - is the jamming new album by Connecticut's Magik Markers.
Continued...
I have one other Magik Markers album, whose name eludes me. It's a pretty prickly old racket, if memory serves, being cranked-up free noise from the scarier extremes of the new American underground scene. Great live, I bet, but a bit tricky to live with.
"Boss", though, is, well, not exactly a sell-out, but certainly what we could call a focusing of their powers. It reminds me a bit of how Royal Trux drifted into focus around the time of "Thank You", with a take on blues-rock that's at once divine and rancorous, primal and avant-garde. Magik Markers are a boy-girl duo, too: Pete Nolan on drums and stuff, the extraordinary Elisa Ambrogio on vocals and lead guitar.
It's easy, and I guess a bit lazy, to slot Ambrogio into a certain lineage that includes Kim Gordon (the incantatory clang of "Axis Mundi") and also Patti Smith. The superb "Last Of The Lemach Line" finds her chanting, "I am the secular Pentecost, Squeezing out the blue snake," while hitting some really profound chords.
This is beautiful and intense stuff, and I'm drawn to quote some excellent notes (that read like they were written by Thurston or Byron Coley, maybe), which describe Ambrosio's guitar playing as "with a mix of blues simplicity, an almost Sonny Sharrock wailing and a janky Americana punk reminiscent of Pat Place and Roky Erickson, Ambrosio avoids preciousness like a rash." Good writing, and "Boss" deserves it.
Even when she's less imperious, on a sweet and diffident piano ballad like "Empty Bottles", Ambrosio sounds like a great force of nature, rich with character and poetry. I'm sure I read somewhere that she figures on the forthcoming Six Organs Of Admittance album, which sounds intriguing: a good person for Chasny to make mischief with.
I don't seem to be terribly lucid today, so I'll stop soon, after noting that Nolan is a limber and inventive foil, that Lee Ranaldo produces brilliantly, and that trying to find Magik Markers on Myspace involves a visit to this place, where we learn, "THIS IS NOT A MAGIK MARKERS MYSPAC,THEY DONT HAVE ONE. THIS WAS DONE BY SOME IDIOT," and ends up at this confusing spot. Very cool band.
John Mulvey

[Moshe]

Date: Jul 31, 2007 8:52 PMSubject: Spectre Folk Show - Sat, Aug 4th - DBA - 49 S 2nd - BrklynBody: SPECTRE FOLK!!!! - behold the levitational futurism of :
Pete Nolan - song/wave forms, JT Sodas - Orgone acumulation, Johnny T - Vodun skins.... Premier of this EXPANDED EXPERIENCE!!! Do not miss out!!!

Saturday, August 4th @ DEATH BY AUDIO - 49 S 2ND

|| BENEFIT FOR SHOWPAPER

|| Dirty Projectors
|||| Effi Briest ------------> mems Psychic Ills
|||||| Ecstatic Sunshine
|||||||| Spectre Folk -----> Pete Nolan from Magik Markers

[ DEATH BY AUDIO - 49 S 2ND ST ]
49 S 2nd St btwn Wythe & Kent | Williamsburg, Brooklyn
L-Bedford, JM-Marcy, G-Metropolitan | 8pm | $7-15 sliding scale | ALL AGES
-- MYSPACE --> http://myspace.com/deathbyaudioshows

[ curated by Team Showpaper ]

[k-krack]

Wow... lumping her in with Kim Gordan and Patti Smith?! I don't know whether to laugh or be incredibly offended. What I've heard from the Magik Markers has ben nothing short of compelte boring attempts at making "noise" music. Nothing but talentless open-string droning and "primal" (retarded) drumming.
It seriously might as well be my mom and dad playing it. There's a fine line between "noise" and "talentless, marketable crap".

I'm done ranting for now...

[Moshe]

Originally Posted by k-krack

Wow... lumping her in with Kim Gordan and Patti Smith?! I don't know whether to laugh or be incredibly offended. What I've heard from the Magik Markers has ben nothing short of compelte boring attempts at making "noise" music. Nothing but talentless open-string droning and "primal" (retarded) drumming.
It seriously might as well be my mom and dad playing it. There's a fine line between "noise" and "talentless, marketable crap".

I'm done ranting for now...

You will be done ranting completely once you hear the new Marker song samples. I'll bet your parents can't sing and play like that.

[k-krack]

I'll check it out, but the moment I hear the same boring crap, you can bet dollars to douchnuts IT'S GOIN' OFF! hehehe

*edit: this is a LOT better than I expected. I like the addition of erm... musicality, we'll say. hehehe.
God dammit, Moshe... I kind of want to get into them now, and I NEVER WANTED TO! STOP IT!
REGARDLESS! In NO WAY is it deserving of the comparisons/categorization!

[atsonicpark]

EDIT: Some of my replies are a bit embarassing now and no longer reflect how I feel. I mean, I'm writing this a good 3 years after writing any of those replies. I've changed as a person. And as a fan -- I LIKE THIS BAND!

I was initially turned off by the confrontational, in-your-face "WE WANT YOU TO HATE US!" stuff... But I actually dig their music now. Weird, eh? You just have to be in the mood for it.

[jon boy]

one of the best bands i ever saw or heard ever.

[whorefrost]

BOSS seems like it could be a way in for all the incredulous head-scratchers who secretly want to be down

[whorefrost]

PS. listened to those samples a couple of times and am not sure what to make of them.. I am not as amped/enthused as some corners of the ecstatic peace camp.. My fav Markers joints are ones like Inverted Belgium which just sound like total dogshit in terms of production but which are just seething with form-destroying noise vortex/forcefield power

[Moshe]

Video Premiere: The Magik Markers: "Taste"


A little over a month ago, Sonic Youth's Lee Renaldo talked about working with the Magik Markers on their new album BOSS, explaining how the abrasive noise band had surprised him with a batch of actual songs, complete with melodies and chord changes. And now, in this video for BOSS' "Taste" by Heidi Diehl of Wooden Wand and the Vanishing Voice, we get an idea of what he was talking about. The visuals are hard to parse and have the feel of found Super 8 footage or Gummo outtakes, as mundane shots of anonymous people milling about alternate with confusing scenes of violence. Occasional performance footage reminds us that, yes, we're watching a music video. And then the music embodies a brooding, dark psychedelia not a million miles from the Black Angels, as Elisa Ambrogio's commanding voice, kissed by just the right amount of gothic reverb, sounds like she's ready to follow a youthful Grace Slick down the rabbit hole. Yes, Lee was right, it's a song all the way, and a good one.

http://pitchforkmedia.com/article/do...-markers-taste

[PAULYBEE2656]

i smile a smile. this new markers record is really really impressing me,well the 2 tracks ive heard............

[PAULYBEE2656]

why is every markers word here red????????

the album is great! well real real good anyway!

[scott v]

Originally Posted by atsonicpark

I tried to add the magik markers on myspace (they have 3 myspaces, I believe; I tried to add the one with only like 150 friends) to talk to them about their new record, but they denied my request and sent me a mean email sayin something like, "Why would I add you, piece of shit?"! It was funny. While I'm not sure if it was the actual magik markers official site run by them and I'm not sure if they're the ones that emailed me, it was still awfully mean............ and it means it's someone who posts on here who sees all the mean things I say about them; which is HILARIOUS that someone on HERE would start a magik markers myspace.. how pathetic!!! Of all the ridiculous things to waste your time on, who in the world would start a goddamn magik markers myspace?! HAHAHAHAHAha. That means the Magik Markers have actually affected your life so much -- some idiot running around making feedback and someone bashing on their drum set, basically a joke band by all accounts and regardless of what anyone says -- that you started a MYSPACE for them...

And if it was ACTUALLY magik markers, that's hilarious because that means that they google themselves often or check this board to see how horrible everyone thinks they are. Either way, you gotta admit it's funny! Unless they have no idea who I am and just deny people randomly and email them, in which case it's not funny, it's just the typical "we make feedback FUCK YOU!" elitism that's prevalent amongst the pretentious rich assholes LIMITED-TO-3-COPY-RUN! of the scene.

whats so pathetic about starting a myspace page about a band they like? i mean so they like them and you don't, why don't you just leave like that.
Is it pathetic if someone starts a myspace page about scissorshock? or the boredoms, sonic youth or deerhoof or whoever else???

As far as i know 2 out of those 3 pages are not by the markers themselves...
and to make it clear its not uncommon for bands to google themselves on the internet, i think it happens frequently eventhough you'd think not. One such person/musician whose connected w/ Ecstatic Peace! (and is not in the Markers) that i've been in email contact w/ has told that they've been researching to see what exists about them on the net by using Google... whats the problem with that anyway?

blah blah blah, you say "pretentious rich assholes doing limited run of 3 copies scene...", obviously 1) you don't know what you are talking about and 2) you are angry because they can do this and for some reason you can't??!?!??! why can't you? oh its because you feel its better to whine and complain about someone who tries to be constructive and make a scene happen and make some sort of contribution (good or bad) instead of making things happen... i hate people who are whiners and complainers and bitch about everything yet they do nothing themselves to make what they are complaining about something better.

does it ever get old with you to slam magik markers endlessly? you must have some sick fetish type of "thrill" out of enjoying negativity... or maybe its jealosy because you don't seem to be obtaining the hype that seems to be surrounding the Markers and that for some reason oh think you are justified in seeking the ultimate attention being speaking such slamming thoughts about them on a bulletin board for another band, wow should i bow down to you as we should be pleasured and grateful of your presence!? but i must say with your attitude and continued remarks of this type should reveal nothing more than a utter disrespect from anyone you encounter and you are likely to obtain nothing more than being a dropping left by a mouse in a field.

besides which choir do think you are continuing to preach to around on this board???

LIFE IS SHORT SO GO GET ONE, YOUR ARGUEMENT IS OLD AND BECOMING INCREASING WEAK!!!

[GrungeMonkey]

Fight! Fight! Fight!

[whorefrost]

Originally Posted by atsonicpark

I tried to add the magik markers on myspace (they have 3 myspaces, I believe; I tried to add the one with only like 150 friends) to talk to them about their new record, but they denied my request and sent me a mean email sayin something like, "Why would I add you, piece of shit?"! It was funny. While I'm not sure if it was the actual magik markers official site run by them and I'm not sure if they're the ones that emailed me, it was still awfully mean............ and it means it's someone who posts on here who sees all the mean things I say about them; which is HILARIOUS that someone on HERE would start a magik markers myspace.. how pathetic!!! Of all the ridiculous things to waste your time on, who in the world would start a goddamn magik markers myspace?! HAHAHAHAHAha. That means the Magik Markers have actually affected your life so much -- some idiot running around making feedback and someone bashing on their drum set, basically a joke band by all accounts and regardless of what anyone says -- that you started a MYSPACE for them...

And if it was ACTUALLY magik markers, that's hilarious because that means that they google themselves often or check this board to see how horrible everyone thinks they are. Either way, you gotta admit it's funny! Unless they have no idea who I am and just deny people randomly and email them, in which case it's not funny, it's just the typical "we make feedback FUCK YOU!" elitism that's prevalent amongst the pretentious rich assholes LIMITED-TO-3-COPY-RUN! of the scene.

only thing more pathetic is making a lengthy ranting post on the sonic youth message board

[pbradley]

I thought two or three two paragraph ranting posts by atsonicpark on every magik markers thread was the norm?

I think he secretly loves them.

[Everyneurotic]

i'll listen to their new rtx-style album when it comes out.

personally, i wanted them to explore the sound the started to do in road pussy, i love how out of their racket, they could build this amazing riffs and random rhythm patterns that worked amazingly well...oh well, at least i'm glad they didn't just sit back, turned on their amps moan some dumb poetry about big boobs and get praised just because they are cool.

ED: this thread is getting funny, it's on its way to become the "sonic youth sold out to the man! and now they kill third world children thru starbucks" "fuck you haters!! i'm proud they are joining paul mccartney in starbucks; in fact, now i'm going 5 times a day to my local starbucks, buy the most expensive drink there and ask when the sonic youth album is arriving. sonic life!!"

[GrungeMonkey]

I love the new song "taste"... Looking forward to the album.

[PAULYBEE2656]

seriously this album is excellent!

Originally Posted by whorefrost

only thing more pathetic is making a lengthy ranting post on the sonic youth message board

Actually, before I read your post I was thinking the same. I cannot understand how someone can go all the way to write a mammoth-like post about how much they hate a band, considering that:

1 - There are millions of bands that are shit, are you going to start writing lengthy posts about them in the hope that poor quality is going to vanish from this world? Isn't that a rather stupid and time-wasting thing to do?

2- Do you seriously think that your amateurish opinions on said band are so important that whomever likes them is going to change their mind just like that (excluding your parents, relatives and friends, of course)?

Personally I am not terribly familiar with Magic Markers' music, but I have listened to them based on Jon Boy's advice and liked most of what I've heard. I wouldn't say I have an opinion or anything about them, but really, it is not the end of the world not have one, or is it?


Here's a thought for today.