[Moshe]

Magik Markers to release 'Balf Quarry'

 

via Drag City out 27th April

February 16, 2009, 03:38 PM

 

When an album begins with a song called "Risperdal" one should assume a mind-and-body-slamming forty-five minutes or so are underway. And one wouldn't be wrong. Sure, BALF QUARRY has moody space in its soul, melodies whether stretched over rock, ululating rhythm, chimes 'n piano and/or wah-wah. Regardless of the configuration, Elisa Ambrogio and Pete Nolan are locked together, beating it out, listening to feeling the sound of their earth quake. And slicing through all the atmosphere, Elisa's voice is a spear of light, splashes of mud, an acid purple flashback.

The BALF QUARRY libretto reads like an inner monologue of some poor bastard from THE STAND: desperate and vengeful musings from the head of a witness to and survivor of an apocalypse, in a world they never made, dreaming helplessly of the demons out west. "Safe before their life sets in" might mean hope in this landscape. The world's not broken -- people ruin it every time.

Working with engineer Scott Colburn (Sun City Girls, Animal Collective, Sir Richard Bishop), Magik Markers have captured a lot of different moods and twitches on BALF QUARRY. Tremoring mid-rhythms form the body, with a couple showers of hardcore, high flying free-duo style and several clinking music boxes of woe as well. On slower tunes, the mass of brooding guitar tone generated is Elisa's signature, a carving all of her own. Fills, licks and other touches move the songs a broken-arm's length away from a fundament of chaos and horror.

When colours actually match and you have grey music for grey days, it's great -- but what about grey music for cherry red lava days, or rainbow sounds arcing over six months of darkness? Anything goes -- and just your luck, Magik Markers have brought anything with them on BALF QUARRY -- a multicolored projectile of vomit you can sing along to!

If psychosis is your thing, BALF QUARRY is like a jukebox just for you. The only thing it's missing is a brick attached to the LP/CD to facilitate throwing it through your window! No, we're not talking about you, asshole. This is the royal 'you' -- the 'you' of all Magik Markers fandom, the 'you' of anyone with ears and the guts for this shit.
__________________
Mark Stevenson

[dazedcola]

Can't wait for it. I used to be of the people who said "theyre nothing but a formless noise band" but after I heard Boss I was completely converted. If this new one is even half as good at that I'm gonna get it and this time I'll make sure to see them live.

[PAULYBEE2656]

excellent!!! looking forward to this one!

[atsonicpark]

Can't fucking wait!

[Derek]

Sarcasm detector is broke.

[atsonicpark]

My favorite line in a Lynch film is from Lost Highway... "I like to remember things my own way. The way I remember them. Not necessarily the way they happened." which the main character says to two police officers. Try saying that to two police officers in real life and see what happens!

[Trasher02]

Originally Posted by atsonicpark

Can't fucking wait!

Wait... What?

[atsonicpark]

What? Of course I want to hear this!!!:

engineer Scott Colburn (Sun City Girls, Animal Collective, Sir Richard Bishop)

I'm a big fan of his!

[atsonicpark]

No, seriously, they're a cool band, I like 'em more than ever.

[PAULYBEE2656]

ac rules!

[batreleaser]

Originally Posted by atsonicpark

My favorite line in a Lynch film is from Lost Highway... "I like to remember things my own way. The way I remember them. Not necessarily the way they happened." which the main character says to two police officers. Try saying that to two police officers in real life and see what happens!

yeah, that was a great scene. the police knew fred was a headcase before fred knew!

and yea im excited, i hope they continue with the soul invading psych power rock thing they had going on in "boss", which was a record that i loved, got sick of for a while, and now i like it again.

[Moshe]

Prolific rock duo Magik Markers will release a new album on April 26th. Balf Quarry, the formal follow-up to 2007’s Boss, was produced by Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo and recorded with Grammy-winning engineer Scott Colburn (Animal Collective). Vocalist Elisa Ambrogio has another album coming out soon, a collaboration with various members of Comets On Fire under the name of San Francisco’s Dirty Stealer. Recorded in Oakland, California, the album was at the mixing stage at the end of January so expect more news on that shortly. A couple of preview tracks are available here.
Balf Quarry
01 Risperdal
02 Don’t Talk In Your Sleep
03 Jerks
04 Psychosomatic
05 7/23
06 State Numbers
07 The Ricercar Of Dr. Clara Haber
08 The Lighter Side Of…Hippies
09 Ohio R. / Live / Hoosier
10 Shells

[dionysusundone]

Should be interesting to hear, kinda more interested in that Dirty Stealer thing though.
Really I think the chick's voice is a bit too flat to be really effective but maybe she's improved by now.

[Moshe]

Magik Markers Fall Out of Their Box, Find New Home on Drag City With Balf Quarry, Tour with Ghost

 

A lot has changed for Magik Markers over these past few years. Leah Quimby left the band in May of 2006, turning the Markers into a duo of Elisa Ambrogio and Pete Nolan. The duo then continued on with a much more focused, song-oriented record with the Lee Renaldo-produced Boss (TMT Review). Meanwhile, Ambrogio moved to San Francisco and then later Seattle, while Nolan moved to Brooklyn. Still unsettled, Magik Markers are now making a label change, jumping from Ecstatic Peace! to Drag City with their new record Balf Quarry.
Despite these changes, Balf Quarry ironically sees the two taking a jump back, with references to the city that used to be their ground turf: Hartford, Connecticut. Indeed, the title Balf Quarry is a reference to "an old stone pit just outside of Hartford, Connecticut."
Produced by Scott Colburn (Sun City Girls, Animal Collective, Sir Richard Bishop), Balf Quarry sees the Markers in a much darker setting. According to Drag City, the new album "is like immersing yourself in a great horror film, complete with mental dissipation, catharsis for the ears, and the most satisfying psychotic listening experience you’ll have this year."
Look out for Balf Quarry May 5. Here’s the tracklist:
1. Risperdal
2. Don’t Take in Your Sleep
3. Jerks
4. Psychosomatic
5. 7/23
6. State Numbers
7. The Ricecar of Dr. Clara Haber
8. The Lighter Side of... Hippies
9. Ohio R./Live/Hoosier
10. Shells
05.09.09 - Brooklyn, NY - Music Hall of Williamsburg *
05.10.09 - Washington, DC - Velvet Lounge *
05.11.09 - Chapel Hill, NC - Local 506 *
05.12.09 - Asheville, NC - Grey Eagle Tavern & Music *
05.13.09 - Athens, GA - Tasty World *
06.26.09 - Ithaca, NY - Lost Dog Lounge
06.28.09 - Montreal, QC - Casa Del Popolo
* Ghost
[Photo: John Ruscher]

[!@#$%!]

and im still waiting for my boss lp...

[Moshe]

http://www.gigwise.com/reviews/album...---Balf-Quarry

Magik Markers - 'Balf Quarry' (Drag City) Released 27/04/09

Haunting, detached, tense and occasionally discordant, this is an intriguing album...

 

4/5 stars




The Magik Markers, Elisa Ambrogio and Pete Nolan, return as a duo with their first “full” release since 2007. Once known for their experimental, noisy, psychedelic free jams, the group reinvented themselves for ‘Boss’, opting for a more structured, coherent approach. Their new album ‘Balf Quarry’ continues in a similar vein.
Mining a similar no-wave/garage-rock sound, comparisons to Sonic Youth circa 1986 (Evol) are easy to draw (even noted on the press release) - not surprising considering that they not only toured with them but at one point had Lee Ranaldo behind the desk. ‘Balf Quarry’ is, however, by no means dismissible.
Although just ten tracks make up the record, it feels incredibly eclectic jumping from slow paced, blues rock-tinged dirge tracks such as ‘Risperdal’ and the vengeful, ‘Don’t Talk in Your Sleep’, to raucous, Stooges inspired hardcore on ‘Jerks’ and ‘The Lighter Side of....Hippies’, to sparse ballads ‘State Numbers’ and ‘Shells’. During ‘7/23’ the group even touch on surf-rock, but collectively the whole package still seems to work.
Ideas within the album feel like they are being stretched to breaking point without ever sounding excessive or needless. A sense of anxiety and apprehension is notable throughout, and is only relieved when the band reveals their riotous, unhinged rock side. The strength here seems to lie in the duo’s ability to trigger uncertainty - even after repeated listens their effective use of repetitive refrains seems to instil ambiguity.
Scott Colburn produces, bringing a similar vibe to his work for Animal Collective. Ambrogio’s strong vocals certainly benefit from being brought to the front of the mix – although in another SY comparison there is certainly an element of Kim Gordon, both in sound and lyrical styling. Clearly keeping tuneful and maintaining a melody plays second fiddle to conveying a mood and atmosphere and it works well. Only on the contrived sounding ‘Psychosomatic’ does the method seem to fall short.
‘The Ricercar of Dr. Clara Haber' is the only piece on the album that alludes to the groups past. In many ways superfluous, it’s an instrumental jam that fails to draw the listener in, sitting uneasily amongst their new found more formulaic sound. Feeling more like an after-thought forced reference to their past the album would flow better without it.
Haunting, detached, tense and occasionally discordant, this is an intriguing album that certainly won’t be making the radio 1 play list, but is likely to garner the group greater cult appreciation – even if it is, to some extent, closing the door on their original art/noise driven fan-base.

[uhler]

i will have to check this album out. i really liked "boss", but not any of their stuff before that album.

[dionysusundone]

Neat, it comes out my b-day. I'll grab it with some bday funds (assuming I don't hear a leak and decide it sucks of course)

[noisereductions]

My favorite line in Lost Highway is a tie. Either:

1. I'm at your house right now.

or

2. Why don't you like me?

I'm not going to paint the scenes out for you, though.

[koolthing78]

"...During ‘7/23’ the group even touch on surf-rock..."

Either that reviewer had the wrong tracklisting, "Adventures in Modern Music" (where I heard it) had the wrong tracklisting, or I am not casting a broad enough mental net to incorporate their idea of "surf rock" into my own thinking. Either way, it is still an awesome song--in the vein of "Lemach Line" (with its circular paranoia (this time revolving around the theme of chance/lotto/odds being against you (sample lyric: "with a scratch-off ticket and a magic trick/pull a rabbit from your hat but make it quick"))) but much more subtle (in terms of music and vocal delivery). I'm almost looking forward to this more than I am the new SY record.