The Magik Markers are a noise rock

Noise rock

Noise rock describes a style of post-punk rock music that became prominent in the 1980s. Noise rock makes use of the traditional instrumentation and iconography of rock, but incorporates atonality and especially dissonance, and also frequently discards usual songwriting conventions.-Style:Noise...

 band from Hartford, Connecticut. The members, Elisa Ambrogio, Pete Nolan and Leah Quimby started the band in their basement in 2001. After opening for Sonic Youth

Sonic Youth

Sonic Youth is an American alternative rock band from New York City, formed in 1981. The current lineup consists of Thurston Moore , Kim Gordon , Lee Ranaldo , Steve Shelley , and Mark Ibold .In their early career, Sonic Youth was associated with the No Wave art and music scene in New York City...

 on their American tour in 2004, the band gained notoriety. Their debut album, I Trust My Guitar, Etc... (released in vinyl only), was released in 2005 on Thurston Moore

Thurston Moore

Thurston Joseph Moore is an American musician best known as a singer, songwriter and guitarist of Sonic Youth. He has also participated in many solo and group collaborations outside of Sonic Youth, as well as running the Ecstatic Peace! record label...

's Ecstatic Peace

Ecstatic Peace

Ecstatic Peace! is a record label based in Easthampton, Massachusetts, founded in 1981 by Sonic Youth member Thurston Moore. The premiere release was a split cassette featuring spoken word performances from Michael Gira of Swans and Lydia Lunch...

 label. In 2006, they released A Panegyric To The Things I Do Not Understand under Gulcher Records, the Markers' first proper CD. Also in 2006, the band recorded a session for Southern records' Latitudes series, which was released as The Voldoror Dance. Leah Quimby left in May 2006. Various people filled in before they eventually settled as a duo composed of original members Pete and Elisa. In September 2007, the band released Boss

Boss (Magik Markers album)

Boss is the second studio album by Magik Markers for Ecstatic Peace, released on September 25, 2007. A vinyl version was also released via Arbitrary Signs.-Track listing:# "Axis Mundi" - 6:23# "Body Rot" - 2:19# "Last of the Lemach Line" - 8:59...

, which was produced by Lee Ranaldo

Lee Ranaldo

Lee M. Ranaldo is an American singer, guitarist, writer, record producer, and visual artist, best known as a co-founder of the alternative rock band Sonic Youth...

. This record was the most structured recording the Markers had released to date. Following in the wake of the Textile release For Sada Jane and the Road Pussy cdr, the band set out to more accurately capture the sound of Magik Markers practices and jams, as opposed to the performance driven chaos of live shows.

Magik Markers have since toured the US and Europe several times. As a part of the Threelobed subscription series they released Gucci Rapidshare Download in 2008. Since their inception Peter Nolan (through his Arbitrary Signs imprint) has consistently produced limited release cdr and tape snapshot documents of the Magik Markers studio/4-track recordings and live performances, all with original handmade artwork, intended for a small audience. With the increasing ubiquity of file sharing, the entire catalogue of long out of print cdrs became readily available. Gucci Rapidshare Download was created by downloading Magik Markers cdrs from websites where they had been posted and remixing and recontextualizing the sounds with newly recorded and archival material. In the same way the Magik Markers have at times blurred the line between performer and audience live, here they have attempted to switch out the authority of the producer and creator with the perceived ownership of the listener. Though no effort of the people who originally created it, music that was intended to be temporal, such as performance, or a cdr duct taped to a piece of cardboard, has become digitally permanent and musical recordings intended to be 'permanent' pieces have become disposable through the authority of the listener. The cd cover features a christ-like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is a retired American professional basketball player. He is the NBA's all-time leading scorer, with 38,387 points. During his career with the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Lakers from 1969 to 1989, Abdul-Jabbar won six NBA championships and a record six regular season...

 floating to a rookie dunk shot and a faceless picture of Elisa and Pete by a dumpster. In addition to the Markers, longtime collaborators Ben Chasny

Ben Chasny

Ben Chasny is an indie rock and psych folk guitarist. His primary projects are Six Organs of Admittance and Comets on Fire . He made his recording debut in 1996 with his heavy, free rock project Plague Lounge on "The Wicker Image", an LP released conjointly between the New World of Sound and Holy...

, Joshua Burkett and John Shaw play on the record. Production is co-credited to Elisa Ambrogio and Ben Chasny.

In 2008 Magik Markers played for the first time in Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

, Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

, Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

, Latvia

Latvia

Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...

 and Wales

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

. Jefferson Hack invited the Magik Markers to perform live from Studio A at Abbey Road

Abbey Road Studios

Abbey Road Studios is a recording studio located at 3 Abbey Road, St John's Wood, City of Westminster, London, England. It was established in November 1931 by the Gramophone Company, a predecessor of British music company EMI, its present owner...

 in London, as part of Nick Kent

Nick Kent

Nick Kent is a British rock critic and musician.-Career:Along with writers including Paul Morley, Charles Shaar Murray and Danny Baker, Nick Kent is seen as one of the most important and influential UK music journalists of the 1970s. He wrote for the British music publication New Musical Express,...

's ShowStudio project. Magik Markers traveled to Nitra, Estonia to appear in (award winning director of Sugisball) Veiko Ounpuu

Veiko Õunpuu

Veiko Õunpuu is an Estonian film director and screenwriter who is best known for his artistic movies Autumn Ball and The Temptation of St. Tony...

's upcoming film. Peter Nolan was honored to again play drums in Jandek

Jandek

Jandek is the musical project of an anonymous outsider musician who operates out of Houston, Texas. Since 1978, Jandek has self-released over 60 albums of unusual, often emotionally dissolute folk and blues songs without ever granting more than the occasional interview or providing any biographical...

's band alongside Matt Heyner in London, and Elisa Ambrogio joined Six Organs of Admittance

Six Organs of Admittance

Six Organs of Admittance is the primary musical project of guitarist Ben Chasny. Chasny's music is largely guitar-based and is often considered new folk, however it includes obvious influences, marked by the use of drones, chimes, and eclectic percussive elements...

 on a US and two European tours. Peter Nolan's Spectre Folk played their first UK tour, with Julie Tomlinson and John Truscinski. While not touring Elisa Ambrogio recorded an LP and performed with San Francisco Dirty Stealer (featuring members of Comets on Fire

Comets on Fire

Comets on Fire was an American noise rock band from Santa Cruz, California. The band was formed in 1999 by guitarist and vocalist Ethan Miller and longtime friend bassist Ben Flashman, who were seeking to create rhythmically and sonically intense music that paid no attention to categorizations.-...

) and contributed short pieces of writing to various projects. In the winter of 2008 the Magik Markers recorded a new record titled Balf Quarry with Grammy winning producer and wizard Scott Colburn of Seattle. Balf Quarry was released in May 2009 on Drag City

Drag City (record label)

Drag City is a Chicago-based independent record label. It was established with a Royal Trux release in 1990 in Chicago, Illinois by Dan Koretzky and Dan Osborn.Drag City specializes in experimental indie rock acts...

. Magik Markers have been chosen as one of the "Best New Bands" of Connecticut by Boston Phoenix Annual 50 Best Bands in America.

Discography

2002

• Beep Beep (CD-R, Arbitrary Signs)
• Mystery City (CD-R, Arbitrary Signs)

2003

• Book as Symbol of 8 Precious Things - Hand of the Creator (CD-R, Arbitrary Signs)

2004

• In the East (CD-R, Imvated)
• Blues for Randy Sutherland (CD-R, Arbitrary Signs)
• Live '03 (CD-R, Arbitrary Signs)
• Live in Ashville (CD-R, Slippy Town)
• Live Summer 2004 (CD-R, Arbitrary Signs)

2005

• Tale of the Whale (CD-R)
• I Trust My Guitar, Etc. (LP, Ecstatic Peace
  Ecstatic Peace
  Ecstatic Peace! is a record label based in Easthampton, Massachusetts, founded in 1981 by Sonic Youth member Thurston Moore. The premiere release was a split cassette featuring spoken word performances from Michael Gira of Swans and Lydia Lunch...
  
  )
• Feel the Crayon (CD-R, Apostasy/Arbitrary Signs / LP, Not Not Fun)
• NxCxHxCx Vol. 1 (LP, no label)

2006

• Inverted Belgium (LP, Hospital Productions)
• For Sada Jane (CD, Textile Records)
• Don and Phil (CD-R, Arbitrary Signs)
• If it's Not a Ford it Sux (CD-R, Arbitrary Signs)
• Road Pussy (CD-R, Arbitrary Signs)
• A Panegyric to the Things I Do Not Understand (CD, Gulcher Records)
• Voldoror Dance (CD, Latitudes)
• Black & Blue (CD-R, Arbitrary Signs)

2007

• Last of the Retsin - You Can't Fuck a Clock / Here Lies the Last of the Redstone (CD-R, Arbitrary Signs)
• Castel Franco Veneto Zagreb Super Report (CD-R, Arbitrary Signs)
• Magik Markers (LP, Spring Press)
• M/M/D/C/ (CD-R, Arbitrary Signs)
• Boss
  Boss (Magik Markers album)
  Boss is the second studio album by Magik Markers for Ecstatic Peace, released on September 25, 2007. A vinyl version was also released via Arbitrary Signs.-Track listing:# "Axis Mundi" - 6:23# "Body Rot" - 2:19# "Last of the Lemach Line" - 8:59...
  
  (CD, Ecstatic Peace
  Ecstatic Peace
  Ecstatic Peace! is a record label based in Easthampton, Massachusetts, founded in 1981 by Sonic Youth member Thurston Moore. The premiere release was a split cassette featuring spoken word performances from Michael Gira of Swans and Lydia Lunch...
  
   / LP, Arbitrary Signs)
• Redux aka the Real McCoy (CD-R, Arbitrary Signs)

2008

• Bored Fortress, split with Vampire Belt (7", Not Not Fun Records)
• Danau Blues (CD-R, Arbitrary Signs)
• For Mary Meyer, the Blind Bear of the Dustbowl (CD-R, Arbitrary Signs)
• Pwtre Ser (CD-R, Arbitrary Signs)
• Gucci Rapidshare Download (CD, 3Lobed)

2009

• Baltimore Trust (CD-R, Arbitrary Signs)
• Balf Quarry (LP/CD, Drag City
  Drag City (record label)
  Drag City is a Chicago-based independent record label. It was established with a Royal Trux release in 1990 in Chicago, Illinois by Dan Koretzky and Dan Osborn.Drag City specializes in experimental indie rock acts...
  
   - May 5, 2009)
• Shame Mask (CD-R, Arbitrary Signs)
• Я (CD-R, Arbitrary Signs)

External links

• The Magik Markers at Ecstatic Peace
• PUNKCAST#1206 live video @ Death By Audio, Brooklyn, on Oct 1 2007. (RealPlayer
  RealPlayer
  RealPlayer is a cross-platform media player by RealNetworks that plays a number of multimedia formats including MP3, MPEG-4, QuickTime, Windows Media, and multiple versions of proprietary RealAudio and RealVideo formats.-History:...
  
  , mp4)
• Magik Markers has been chosen as one of the "Best New Bands" of Connecticut by Boston Phoenix Annual 50 Best Bands in America