“Balf Quarry, an old stone pit just outside of Hartford, Connecticut, represents a central place for Elisa Ambrogio and Pete Nolan, the duo who call themselves Magik Markers, and is the apt title of their forthcoming May Drag City release. Unearthed from the mines of Connecticut in 2001, Magik Markers have been brutalizing audiences with their shattering live appearances and recordings since the first part of this century. They are now living and creating on opposite sides of the country. Elisa Ambrogio recently moved to Seattle from San Francisco and Pete Nolan resides in Brooklyn, but they came together in Elisa's new city to record Balf Quarry with Scott Colburn (Sun City Girls, Animal Collective, Sir Richard Bishop). Balf Quarry has moody space in its soul, and on this album you'll find Elisa and Pete locked together, beating it out, listening to and feeling the sound of their earth quake. And slicing through all the atmosphere, Elisa's voice is a spear of light, splashes of mud, and an acid purple flashback. Listening to Balf Quarry is like immersing yourself in a great horror film, complete with mental dissipation, catharsis for the ears, and the most satisfying psychotic listening experience you'll have this year.” – DC.

“Balf Quarry, an old stone pit just outside of Hartford, Connecticut, represents a central place for Elisa Ambrogio and Pete Nolan, the duo who call themselves Magik Markers, and is the apt title of their forthcoming May Drag City release. Unearthed from the mines of Connecticut in 2001, Magik Markers have been brutalizing audiences with their shattering live appearances and recordings since the first part of this century. They are now living and creating on opposite sides of the country. Elisa Ambrogio recently moved to Seattle from San Francisco and Pete Nolan resides in Brooklyn, but they came together in Elisa's new city to record Balf Quarry with Scott Colburn (Sun City Girls, Animal Collective, Sir Richard Bishop). Balf Quarry has moody space in its soul, and on this album you'll find Elisa and Pete locked together, beating it out, listening to and feeling the sound of their earth quake. And slicing through all the atmosphere, Elisa's voice is a spear of light, splashes of mud, and an acid purple flashback. Listening to Balf Quarry is like immersing yourself in a great horror film, complete with mental dissipation, catharsis for the ears, and the most satisfying psychotic listening experience you'll have this year.” – DC.

Collaboration album between Helena Espvall of Espers et al and Masaki Batoh of Ghost. Recorded in Tokyo, Japan in December 2008, the bulk of Overloaded Ark feels like an instrumental Ghost album, with traditional folk melodies threaded by ethnic strings, wordless vocal tones and the occasional deep-space drone. It feels pretty varied in its approach, with soaring celtic hymns seguing into Popol Vuh-style devotionals and early music instrumentals that could almost be William Lawes. Guest appearances from various Ghost members.

New Six Organs studio album with a bigger sound and more of a group feel. Recorded by Randall Dunn (Sunn O)))/Earth), Luminous Night features violinist Eyvind Kang and flautist Hans Teuber who add to the overall cinematic feel of the sonics.

Collaboration album between Helena Espvall of Espers et al and Masaki Batoh of Ghost. Recorded in Tokyo, Japan in December 2008, the bulk of Overloaded Ark feels like an instrumental Ghost album, with traditional folk melodies threaded by ethnic strings, wordless vocal tones and the occasional deep-space drone. It feels pretty varied in its approach, with soaring celtic hymns segueing into Popol Vuh-style devotionals and early music instrumentals that could almost be William Lawes. Guest appearances from various Ghost members.

Long-term VT readers might recall that we scored a bunch of original sealed copies of this 1983 private press singer-songwriter LP from Kansas City back in the day – now Drag City, in association with Yoga Records, have reissued it on vinyl. I’ve seen it described as 'yacht rock' but it's nowhere near as swanky or smugly MOR as that painful epithet might suggest. The feel is kinda post-Crosby, Stills & Nash with touches of late-period Tim Buckley and a production style that's straight outta the same bag that birthed Lou Reed's great Blue Mask (recorded the year before). There are some weird effects, sped-up tape, synth and outer space lyrics and the songwriting gets pretty extended, especially on the last track on side one, "Kamikaze Pilot". Cover has some cool fucked-up Dali/Klaus Schulze-style art fantasy, tho Jeff does look a little like David Cassidy on the back, so don't flip it. Might be too sedate a place for some but this far into the game *anything* that fell off the map during the 'classic' rock era sounds good to me.

Ben Chasny of Six Organs Of Admittance pretty much put Gary Higgins back on the map when he covered “Thicker Than A Smokey” on School Of The Flower and encouraged Drag City to reissue his private press classic, 1973’s Red Hash. Higgins pretty much disappeared after it was released, going down for a pot deal and spending a period in jail. A Dream A While Back adds another piece of the puzzle with a series of stoned/loner demos cut prior to Red Hash with a similar out-of-time appeal. A Dream A While Back has a deep, rural feel cut up with subtly drug-damaged songwriting that combines paeans to oblivion with a travelling post-hippie feel and a dislocated, off-the-map ambience. 

2005 psych/folk summit between Ben Chasny (Six Organs Of Admittance) and Hiroyuki Usui aka L, whose classic Holy Letters recording became a major touchstone for Japanese acid folk. Usui was also briefly a member of Keiji Haino's Fushitsusha but here he's in a more dosed, acoustic mode, dealing in head-nodding rhythms and drawn-out string drones that Chasny wraps in a web of wood and wire.