Mark McGuire
Living With Yourself

Some time ago, I found out that my favorite drone group, the Emeralds, had disbanded. It was a mild shock both because they had only been droning since 2006 and because in seven years they had released 40 publications, including albums, live performances, tapes, and CD-Rs. They quickly became my favorites not only because their palette ranges from ambient to Kosmische to classy noise to soundscapes to field recordings (essentially, every album is a surprise, pleasant or not), but also because of the absolute penetrability of most of their works. Their latest album, "Just to Feel Anything," from last year, is a prime example.

In short, with these premises I've just written, I approached McGuire's solo career, the band's guitarist. I expected a slightly challenging, atmospheric noisy-arty drone with endless tracks, but I was surprised. And it's not that I found myself with a psych singer-songwriter album (which would have been too much Devendra or too freak-early-2000s), but with an incredibly intriguing album (still solely guitar-based). This friend is a wizard with effects and showed me profusely; in particular, delay is his primary steed. The result, however, is an album truly approachable by anyone, crazily enjoyable, and even magnificent if you appreciate a bit of psychedelia or post-rock, the former for some timbral solutions, the latter for McGuire's Montgomerian attitude (Roy is the only comparable one I know; otherwise, the album is hard to label). The heart of this album doesn't lie in the melody of individual tracks but in the disorienting effect that the myriad of overdubbed guitar phrases causes in our ears. Actually, on second thought, the heart of the album is something else... the theme is nostalgia. As you can see, the cover is a collage of Mark's childhood photos. And the tracks feature here and there samples of recordings from Mark's early life. In short, as a theoretical atmosphere, it reminds me of the intimate Kozelek, just to make it clear that we're talking about the author's stuff, there's no room for personal interpretation. It's intimate singer-songwriting without a voice. Yes... it's a bit like flipping through someone else's photo album whom we've never seen; each photo suggests a feeling we haven't experienced, a shiver captured on film that we can't imagine, passions we can't understand... this album is a collection of musical photos. Entirely instrumental with only the help of very carefully placed mini drum machine inserts, it really is possible to imagine a foreign feeling behind the notes. Once I gave up trying to make these tracks my own, I slowly started to adore them. The atmosphere of great distance but especially these little strips of notes intertwining, perhaps on a carpet of indistinct sounds, truly take me on magnificent journeys.

One track, in particular, gave me a lot of pleasure to listen to: I'll link it in part in the info, maybe play it if you're in the mood while reading. It's Brothers (For Matt). Opened by a recording of a child and an adult chatting, around the second minute, the track explodes in a jubilation of tangled guitars that's a wonder. The patterns seem to really split infinitely, like the memories that bind us to a loved one. Moving, I'm listening to it while writing with the smell of wet cement coming in from the porch, magical, truly. Well, I've depleted my stock of heterosexuality for this review, now I'll behave well.