Mako Sica is a trio from Chicago, Illinois, United States featuring Przemyslaw Krys Drazek on guitar and trumpet, Michael J. Kendrick on drums and Brent Fuscaldo on vocals, guitar and various percussion. The words Mako Sica come from a Sioux Lakota Native American term meaning "land bad." Taken from signpost at the Painted Desert in Arizona during a trip Fuscaldo took in 2007.
Both Drazek and Kendrick were in Chicago-based band Rope who released several records on Family Vinyard before disbanding in 2006. Drazek's unmistakable, atmospheric guitar / trumpet sound and Kendrick's found percussion had taken on a new direction the following year. The addition of Fuscaldo meant keeping the cinematic, lengthy compositions and incorporating groove, deeply rooted in American Blues.
The voice is used here as an operatic instrume
nt, often the language being sung is indecipherable. There are rarely, if any words, used as lyrics. "The passion that comes across listening to a flamenco singer is not lost on me, even though I barely understand Spanish. I decided to not force syllables and words out of sounds that I could easily express without connotation during the writing process." While distant and echoed, his voice comes through strong hearkening Eastern as well as South American influence.
For percussion, Kendrick brings in mixing bowls, wind chimes, bottle caps among other bits and pieces. He grew up playing drums in a country western band at occasional barn gigs and then went on to play Metallica covers with a two-piece thrash band. His drumset in Rope clad with iron skillets and shelves upon shelves of percussion littered their songs with his unpredictable accents.
Drazek toured in Europe with his Poland-based hardcore band Krzycz before moving to the US. Since then he's developed a a distinct guitar style. With a sound drenched in delay, his low bass rumbles beneath the surface and piercing treble of his slide guitar evokes whale sounds. His African-style fretwork and flourishes are hidden at times beneath effects and in rare moments reveal themselves.
Their music grows out of a city whose past and present saw artists like Art Ensemble Of Chicago and Sun Ra push their music to the outer limits of definition. Traces of Ennio Morricone and prog rockers Soft Machine can be found in their music. What all three members have in common is an early discovery of punk. The ethos of American underground DIY labels such as Dischord and Canadian label Constellation had a lasting impression on their approach to making music.
In the Summer of 2008, the band recorded early versions of these songs themselves, packaged up CDs making each one unique with its own different photos on the front and the back and sold with them on a self-booked tour that Fall. A performance at Empty Bottle later that year caught the attention of local cassette label Plus Tapes who released a version of that tour CD on cassette.
The following May 2009, the band set up their equipment in Strobe Recording on the Northwest side of Chicago, invited some friends to sit in on the session and recorded a live record. Permanent Records released the two songs, roughly 30 minutes long, on a 12". All 120 copies handmade and screened with an insert quoting someone who heard the record in advance of its pressing, who described the band as "Early ECM catalog played by punk rockers."
That same month, the trio headed into a studio which is housed under the warehouse ironically where those Constellation and Dischord releases that helped shape their musical growth are shipped out daily. Guitarist Todd Rittman, of the respected Chicago band US Maple, and James Zespy, engineer and collaborator with June Panic and Songs: Ohia, recorded Mako Sica's debut "Dual Horizon." "Dual Horizon" will be released on La Societe Expeditionnaire in the Spring of 2010, followed by the band's Northeastern US tour.
The original lineup:
Brent J. Fuscaldo - voice, guitar;
Przemyslaw Krys Drazek - guitar, trumpet;
Michael J. Kendrick - percussion.
http://www.myspace.com/makosica
User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License and may also be available under the GNU FDL....
READ MORE
