New Music: Gutevolk, Matta Llama, Magik Markers

Gutevolk - Portable Rain (Noble 2007)

Gutevolk - Tiny People Singing Over The Rainbow / Noble

Tiny People Singing Over The Rainbow is the fourth album of electro-acoustic sunshine from Hirono Nishiyama. Previously operating under her given name, Nishiyama worked closely with Nobukazu Takemura, releasing a few records on his Childisc label, and even providing cute, understated vocal work to some of Takemura's childlike electronic pieces. Her marriage to Noble is a no-brainer. Noble's aim is to curate "music for daily life", a kind of easygoing aesthetic characterized as "purely beautiful and simply liberated". The label has also released material by Kazumasa Hashimoto, Midori Hirano, and Yasushi Yoshida, all musicians interested in creating wonderfully naive compositions.

To say I'm in love with Japanese "music for daily life" would be an understatement. From Lullatone's patented pajama pop to Yuichiro Fujimoto's tiny minimalism, this type of thing sends me drifting along without a care in the world. Gutevolk will perhaps be more digestable than those artists, more recognizable to Western internet-seekers, those devoted to constant pursuit of cutting edge blogosphere fanfare. Falling in a loosely-bound school of mellowgold indie pop featuring the likes of Stereolab, The Books, and Manitoba/Caribou., Gutevolk certainly has the capacity to perk plenty of ears. "Portable Rain" is a long stroll on a brisk spring day, projecting hazy dreams of such a perfect setting. Songs like "This Moon Is Following Me" and "Ao To Kura" are playful indie pop-filtered bossa nova numbers with Bacharachian sensibilities. It all rolls along so effortlessly. "Seed of Sky" and "I Like Rainbow" opt for less structured pastures, in tandem scoring an escape to dreamlike dandilion meadows.

I don't know "whats in the water" over in Japan but the country keeps giving birth to wonderful cultural exports that are beguiling and more than a little alien to Western sensibilities. But I don't mean to write a treatise on cultural cross-pollenation; in fact I aim to do the opposite. After this last sentence is typed, I will retire to my wonderful backporch and watch the sun set on a beautiful March day, soaking in life's simple pleasures.




Matta Llama - A Sky Blue Screw (Mad Monk 2007)

Matta Llama - S/T / Mad Monk

Matta Llama is a mysterious psych rock force, scorching the earth direct from NYC. All other details are sketchy other than the band being a foursome featuring Arik Moonhawk Roper doing it up on bass guitar, who, for all I know, could be the rightful king of Atlantis. Matta Llama sure sounds mystical, existing hidden for thousands of years hidden deep in the Himalayas. Its all about lost cities, the kind Calvino wrote about. If it can be imagined then it might as well exist, no matter how surreal. Lets not forget that "psych" is still short for "psychedelic", and the jams have to be a proper trip. Feel the gravitational pull here on Matta Llama's self-titled LP.

"Egypt Chic" comes to us from deep inside a cavern. Jazzy caveman drumming and undulating bongwater bass dimly light the way until a lightning breathed, guitar-wielding hydra emerges from the depths. Things are nice and chill until that guitar, rightfully placed to shake things up. "Thetan Cruise" is a heavy contrast to the dark opener, like hopping a freight train to the cosmos, chugging along with a fuzzed out groove and particularly athletic drumming always picking up speed. Whoever the guitar wizard is, his intrusions are always tasteful in how they totally blow a hole straight thru your brain. Matta Llama is given a voice on "A Sky Blue Screw". Its like peaking in on someone's acid trip, hearing their conversations with God, with them vehemently making demands for change in reality. Kind of rambling and certainly creepy, this barely coherent, definitely enraged voice kind of reminds me of Swans' Michael Gira in its sheer vainbusting intensity.

Matta Llama's debut is a proper one, appealing equally to true New Weird Americans and to those who think Dead Meadow is the only band still soldiering on with the psych rock schtick. This stuff truly exists outside of schtick, the inhuman grunting on "A Deepening Sky" sounding completely unaware of itself as such, done in a vaccuum where everything sticks with a sincere belief that grunting is an acceptable form of artistic expression. I wholeheartedly agree that after hearing enough people talk it all eventually devolves into just a bunch of grunting. "Grunt more often", decreed the great guardian of Matta Llama.




Magik Markers - Don't Come Home (Arbitrary Signs 2007)

Magik Markers - Castel Franco: Veneto/Zagreb Super Report / Arbitrary Signs

Its hard to believe that I've been holding my breath for twenty-three years. Somehow Magik Markers caught my blindspot, slipped thru the cracks, but now I can finally exhale. Castel Franco: Veneto/Zagreb Super Report is yet another limited release cd-r from one of out-sound's favorite rock bands. This record won't be too surprising for those following the band's prolific output, but as for myself, for once without those jaded glasses, this album came like a wicked uppercut, knocking me into the stratosphere of deep personal introspection. Like the first time I heard Born Against or Guyana Punchline, somehow the ferocity of Magik Markers has gotten under my skin with moving cacaphony. I don't mean to descend into Braffisms, but this band may change your life.

Formerly a trio, Magik Markers is now, at least for this recording, the duo of Pete Nolan & Elisa Ambrogio. You may have heard about Ambrogio's tendency to devour showgoers. It may seem like histrionics but theres a kind of unsteady trust beaming from her, an animalistic unpredictability, challenging the connection between performer and audience. Listen to the recording. Listen to her tear and rip at the guitar, casting off inner demons. Maybe most importantly, go watch to get the full treatment. Like staring into the Bucket Of Truth, its easy to lose yourself in the maelstrom, but like Ian Robert's detective with existential angst, I say "Don't you think I already know that?". The group's free-rock dirges are intense and ultimately cathartic, addressing frustrations both long-simmering and freshly struck. Its like breaking things for the hell of it, shaking your fist at the sky in defiance even though you know it won't change a thing.

"Fire of the Mind" kicks off this live recording. Heavy background chatter is like captured EVP as Ambroggio channels demons thru her admittedly "masturbatory" guitar style, constantly climaxing as Pete Nolan lays down bed-of-nails drumbeats. "Don't Come Home" is some of the most vitally urgent music I've heard in ages, channeling early Sonic Youth thru the epic guitar palette of *gasp* Neil Young. Ambroggio's narrative passionately espousing harsh travels far from home, a life void of comfort and familiarity. "Can't Kill Luck" is the apex of the album, covered in rattlesnakes, Ambroggio plays an angel of death, disguised as a "buxom woman, black hair, with a firm ass and small waist", virulently laying down the facts of life to a dying man, recounting the glorious, never again attainable attributes of youth and the inevitable march towards death. The second-half of the album picks up the pace, the group settling into a groove with their patented low-end anti-rock, charging forward sonically with reckless abandon. The record ends with a hovering drone number, running at ten minutes its a good way to ease your way out of things.

Castel Franco: Veneto/Zagreb Super Report captures Magik Markers at a time when they are shining brighter than ever. This may be that record, the kind of essential document that becomes a standard point of reference for namedropping record nerds. There's a heavy haze that forms over the course of the record, but its worth it to stand tall and enjoy it from start to finish. This may only be one of fifteen release for the band this year but they certainly have me by the throat for the whole ride.