This new Magik Markers cdr has just made it to the tip of the tongue on volcanictongue.com you can get it from their website... John Shaw did all the freaky hand painting on em so maybe you can score them from him too : john@gladtree.cTIP OF THE TONGUE 01 MAY 2011
Magik Markers
Mother Was Magik: Live Free Stone Cold
Arbitrary Signs No Cat
CD-R
£9.99
As much as I dig the more ‘overground’ Markers releases, it’s the private jams on the Arbitrary Signs releases that most regularly ‘do it’ for me. Mother Was Magik is a killer live set from the Markers trio of Elisa Ambrogio, Pete Nolan and John Shaw in oversize hand-painted/printed envelopes recorded at John Zorn’s The Stone venue in NY as part of a series curated by Tom Surgal. This is Markers at their most ‘out’ and hardest jamming, with Nolan playing fast/thudding snare/cymbal work with alla the combustive force of Sunny Murray while the guitar goes through the roof, combining spurts of fuzz and wah with an approach to convoluted string dynamics that could almost be Jailbreak. There’s a primitive modal quality to the interaction that takes the most tranced psychedelic guitar – Billy TK, Television, even The Byrds circa Fifth Dimension – and pushes it through ascension after ascension before Elisa’s vocals enter like a voice from a cloud or Patti circa Radio Ethiopia. Indeed Radio Ethiopia’s Abyssinia is another key reference, pushing rock alla the way into freedom by unplugging from notions of ‘fidelity’ altogether. There are moments of mass-vocal chant that could almost be Father Yod but when they break back into song it’s “Looking At You” by The MC5 as played by frigging Kleenex. This is a great, great set, one that keeps unravelling and birthing new ideas at a head-spinning rate and one of the best showcases of the breadth and depth of Markers’ approach to instant rock form. A major release: highly recommended.
