Magik Markers are one of those bands that UK hipsters and scenesters name drop when they want to look cool, or pretend that they write for Plan B Magazine (the spiritual home of UK hipsterdom). As a result I haven’t gone out of my way to hear them until now and I don’t think I’ve missed much. As you would expect from a band produced by Sonic Youth’s Lee Ronaldo and released on Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore’s Ecstatic Peace imprint Magik Markers resemble their mentors quite closely, from the distorted guitar to the Kim Gordon-esque drawl of Elisa Ambrogio. The only time the tiresome Youthisms vanish (along with that drawl) are on the pretty piano driven ‘Empty Bottles’ and the ballad ‘Bad Dream/Hartford’s Beat Suite’, so out of keeping with the rest of the record are these two that one is left wondering if they are by the same band.
The rest of the record is pointless and as dated as any reissue of ‘Confusion is Sex’. Plan B readers will love it.
