MAGIK MARKERS - Boss

When confronted with an example of magnificence in nature, such as a waterfall, Jane Goodall reported that the chimpanzees she observed were captivated, as if in awe of the beauty of the world. On BOSS, the Magik Markers have tried to capture the chimps awe. A formality and restraint the Markers have never exerted on their previously recorded material is present on BOSS. Now the Markers are Jainists, with their mouths masked so as to not inhale even one tiny insect, here pursuing the killer gentle with a vengeance. Recorded in the cavernous dark of Echo Canyon West, with producer Lee Ranaldo working the boards like a diviner, BOSS documents the Markers with a previously unheard fidelity and orchestration. Idiosyncratic song structure and melodies interspersed with a destructive drum stomp are reminiscent of the early electrified blues of Junior Kimbrough, or the black hole rhythms of Kousokuya. Mixing a gentle vulnerability with a winded egomania, the Markers have always had a musical tunnel vision; BOSS is that vision made manifest. The tug of war the Markers enact, the way they are fully prepared to start yanking their world apart as they find themselves losing their place in, makes moot possibilities of greatness or mediocrity. It makes them unapologetic soothsayers with their ears pressed to the ground, waiting for footsteps. With Peter Nolan, we finally hear what Lou Reed would have sounded like had he sallied with the drums instead of getting seduced by the easy praise of front man status. Like Rashid Ali squeezed into the Teutonic leather pants of Faust, Nolan drums like there are hell hounds at his heels but he just cant be bothered. Here both laconic and frenzied, Nolans drumming arms reach out like an octopus: tickling the ivories, humming the organ and blasting taps on some kind of endtime trumpet. As a pianist, Nolan reminds us that the piano is a percussive, beating out the whoomp of some old war dance, a bare foot-fall rhythm of fighters to battle and the heavy hands of a whiskey burlesque in the afternoon. Nolan is easy to underestimate, but finally, here is high fidelity record of the strange soul of one of Americas most natural and quizzical musical minds. -Ecstatic Peace\r\n