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Words: Miranda Iossifidis
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Photography: Simon Fernandez
and baby I’m no king
These are the words staring out from the spine
of the gatefold CD case. Lines of a story trail
over the front and back in bold. This is Magik
Markers’ For Sada Jane (Textile); it is a lullaby
for anewborn child. No really – it is: the niece
of drummer Peter Nolan.
Have you heard The Magik Markers when
they play? Can you imagine their conception
of a cradle rocking? So, the four songs here
are quieter than any other thing they have
recorded, quieter than last year’s Future
Crayon album. More silence is let in and
more corners are touched in the process.
Yes, it could be a baby’s hanging mobile,
but one with binaural mics connected
to a manipulated cassette player, and
well-thumbed ephemera replacing fuzzy,
textured shapes.
I’m glad this is the sound of The Magik
Markers now. This version of them makes more
sense. Listen again and repeat: this album is
not going to brazenly destroy like their others,
nor is its inclination to stun, as with their
performances. These songs earmark their
third state being drawn out and searched:
that of lateral tonal experiments and whispers
and shifted arrangements – their chronicle
of recording at home.
one hundred buick skylarks/coming
straight for you
Elisa Ambrogio, Leah Quimby and Peter Nolan
are always travelling, always shifting location.
When we meet in London, their stories are all
about displacement, but more importantly
about finding new things in new
places, which they channel
in and out of the music
which changes each
night. They
talk
not
of hometowns and origins. They make use of
every difference in each place they visit, finding
a balanced sense of identification with others:
there is a global, networked community of
noise-makers that the trio acknowledge and
take inspiration from.
And this is twinned with a willingness
to take risks with the unfamiliar. Only one
track on For Sada Jane has been made in their
traditional formation. They’ve collaborated
with friends on strings on ‘Shabbetai Tzevi/
1666’; John Shaw of Gladtree and Apostasy
records; and ‘little known musical genius’
Joshua Burkett of the Gold Cosmos album.
New rhythmic and textural ideas brought
into the fold, the result is a gentle provocation
– completely outside the sphere of noise in
its most glorified state as an impenetrable,
homoerotic endeavour.
what more here can you learn from/who
here can you trust?
Fetishism of the guitar: isn’t that a dull idea
now? Is anyone scared? Could you look at the
fretboard and see something that isn’t there?
Is this fetishism really sadistic? With The
Magik Markers, such questions aren’t worth
answering: brutality is but a small fraction
of what they toy with. I’ll hold up one of
vocalist/guitarist Elisa’s howls instead: “What
do you want, the creator or what he creates?”
Yeah, there is a history. The band are
using some sounds, or ideas of sounds, that
have already been captured and honoured
elsewhere, but I wasn’t there for any of it.
If you choose, point at reference points:
Eighties hardcore, Teenage Jesus , Lydia
Lunch, DNA, Eno’s No Wave. Is it necessary?
Where it stands now is thus: there is so much
free music being made and exalted. In Magik
Markers case, it was via Thurston Moore via
Ecstatic Peace. And then noise festivals and alldayers
and tapes and tours in faraway places.
there is no time to lie to you /i want to
make it so i can try you blue
And now: a network of people
carried by ideas instead of location,
a shared intent with different
ends. What makes The
Magik Markers’ variation
important is that
any notion of
indulgence is
eradicated by
their openness
– their output viscerally implores that any other way would
be contrived.
That anyone can attempt it is not even part
of the equation.
the real royal of this city is everything
we see
I finish with Gordon Matta Clark, a filmmaker
in the Seventies who got called an architect
for the things he did. Those things remind
me of the things The Magik Markers do.
In 1975’s ‘Conical Intersect’, Clark carved
a hole all the way through an abandoned
17th Century apartment block in central Paris.
The hole is tornado-shaped, spiralling out.
Exploding through various layers of yellowing
wallpaper and bricks, Clark makes impossible
views of the city available, and every angle is
rich and beautiful. He had good words to say,
about it being an esoteric hidden work in the
history of inaccessible projects. And that there
is no one vantage point that gives you a sense
of depth and complexity of it – it’s almost
undocumentable.
This sliced space is a physical equivalent
of what Elisa, Leah and Pete do. There is
a fierce, shared preoccupation with decay
and the messiness of urbanity: an obsession
that links all free musicians. Like Clark, they’re
crafting temporal visions out of voids; and
building anti-monuments to them.
This article first appeared in Issue 13 |
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