Spookyland
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia | Established. Jan 01, 2014 | INDIE
Music
Press
That voice—adenoidal, snarling, and echoing like Jeff Mangum singing inside of a beer can—is what you’ll notice first about Marcus Gordon, the young Australian who records with his band under the name Spookyland. “The Silly Fucking Thing”, which is the first song off his upcoming EP, Rock and Roll Weakling, doesn’t make any grand leaps past its sweeping British pop-rock template—it starts slow and stirs so grandiosely you can picture Chris Martin walking toward you in your mind’s eye.
But: that voice. It’s stuck in my head even as I can’t tell whether or not I find it grating. Gordon follows in the tradition of singers like Mangum, Bob Dylan, Joanna Newsom, and anyone so piercingly idiosyncratic as to make half their listeners automatically turn off in annoyance. He goes all the way, selling what could’ve been a routine song about love gone wrong with an utterly magnetizing vulnerability. It’s so raw and trusting that you want to handle it with care, unlike the heart he sings about that keeps getting carelessly broken. - Pitchfork
Buzz Band Of The Week “it careens between Fleet Foxes and homeliness and the larger-than-life theatrics of The Flaming Lips with a sense of abandon that’s not just romantic, it’s gospel”. - NME
Discography
The Silly Fucking Thing
Photos
Bio
Spookyland is the musical vehicle for 22 year old Marcus Gordon and his band consisting of his brother guitarist Liam Gordon, drummer Nath Mansfield and bass-player Nic Malouf.
Spookyland’s EP “Rock and Roll Weakling”, released on independent label Monday Records, has received praise from the likes of Pitchfork (“An utterly magnetizing vulnerability”) to NME (““an enviable confidence that will hopefully carry him far and wide as a vocalist, producer and performer”). The Wandering Lamb Music Blog describes the music as “... like nothing you have heard before. Ranging between moments of trembling sweetness to guttural snarls, a surprisingly large range of emotion and musical talent within such a small output of four songs, and for a mere 22 year old to boot.”
2014 is set to be the year where Spookyland well and truly leaves the bedroom and enters the public domain. In August 2014, they signed a deal with Canvasclub, the single arm of US label Canvasback, which was founded by rock’n’roll veteran Steve Ralbovsky (who previously signed The Strokes, Kings of Leon, Soundgarden, My Morning Jacket). Other artists currently on the Canvasback roster include Grouplove, Alt-J and The Orwells. Canvasback is a subsidiary of Atlantic Records.
Asked the usual question about his influences growing up, Marcus replies “I was pretty un-phased with what I heard when I was little, black metal set something off, but it wasn’t until mum showed me Bowie that the pistons really started to fire.”
Describing the EP, Marcus is nothing if not honest: “A patchwork… I’m imitating myself while a heavy rock and roll band carry me along. It’s all presented to a stunning height by the producer, Tony Buchen. Every song comes from different times and cycles of fixation. ‘Blood in the Rain’ and ‘Silly’ come from when I was really young, to me it’s evident in their naivety and their overblown audacity. ‘Adventure Song’ comes from an abandoned conceptual folk album, ‘Rock and Roll Weakling’ was written for the record”.
Visitors to Spookyland’s facebook have enjoyed his various postings of poetry, screenplays, and even the start of a novel. Asked whether he considers himself more of an author, poet or musician, Marcus opines: “Author implies authority, which is something I haven’t earned. Poet comes from the Greek word poetes which means maker, I’m no God- and musician reminds me of physician or something, which marks the highest kind of professionalism- I’m far from that height. For me it’s just conjuring some kind of realm and I’m equally impassioned in all my chosen ministries”.
Spookyland are touring nationally throughout Australia and are set to announce shows in the US and UK. About the live show, Marcus explains: “It’s something that’s going to expand a whole lot as time goes. Right now we’re just trying to move energy. I think it’s more traditional rock and roll then some people would guess.”
Asked about his worldwide ambitions, Marcus deadpans: “I’d just like to die having manifested a heap of things”.
Band Members
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