Volcanic post-hardcore trio Magik Markers have spent the past couple of years touring alongside the likes of Sunburned Hand of the Man, Dinosaur Jr., and Sonic Youth, all while cultivating their reputation as champions of the primal, crazed live spectacle. On the way, the Markers have also found time to issue their righteously chaotic Ecstatic Peace album I Trust My Guitar, Etc. in addition to the obligatory slew of homemade cassettes and CD-Rs. But to this point the group's recorded output has resembled a series of blurred snapshots of a massive, writhing serpent-- with each occasional glimpse of fang, tongue, or rattle obscured in a cloud of furious, scaly motion. And so it continues on their latest sustained leap into the void, A Panegyric to the Things I Do Not Understand, an album that yet again faithfully captures the trio's brutal sonics in all their impulsive, erratic splendor.
Panegyric is the first of the Markers' works to see an official CD release, and as such it showcases a corresponding (if incremental) progress in recording fidelity. Mastered by kindred spirit Matt Valentine, the album still maintains the appearance of a live document, particularly in the inchoate gush of Elisa Ambrogio's hyper-charged, extemporaneous vocals. If there was any significant post-production sweetening it wasn't particularly effectual, as the album is split into two equal-length tracks-- the California side and the Paris side-- each of which unfolds with the halting, asymmetric momentum of an especially turbulent real-time event.
When spouting at peak efficiency, Magik Markers are able to incorporate an astonishing breadth of influence into their mulching, free-rock hysteria. At base level, the group operates in a fertile vein of unaffiliated Harry Pussy/Dead C noise, but with a further emphasis on pure, low-octane garage thud. Panegyric also contains the echoes of everything from standard No Wave scribbling to the free-blasting improvisations of Sonny and Linda Sharrock, to the burlesque dementia of Suckdog. Much of this exhaustive versatility can be credited to drummer Pete Nolan, who can return the most outward-bound clatter instantly to a tribal, Godz-like primitivism. Ambrogio and bass guitarist Lea Quimby both sound in fine fettle as well, with Elisa's manic exhortations on the first track eventually devolving into an extended passage of collective subhuman whistles, chirps and grunts.
More recent pre-histories are explored on the second track, as Ambrogio's prolonged, fervent rap makes lyrical reference to AC/DC, Patti Smith, and the MC5, perhaps in an implicit attempt to secure a place for Magik Markers in that heady pro-rock lineage. Despite the Markers' obvious talent for spontaneous invention and their deceptively ambitious reach, however, their work still contains far too many hesitant passages that in quainter times might've been worked out in the rehearsal room. (And would it kill them to give Nolan's drums proper authority in the mix, or for Elisa to refrain from straying off-mic in mid-verse?) Sporadically triumphant though it is, this Panegyric remains too studded with false leads and curious periods of inaction to truly rank as the all-devouring, avant-rock juggernaut that the trio appears capable of someday delivering.
