Markus Wormstorm — Not, I but A friend

Markus Wormstorm, (born Markus Smit) is a South African electronic musician who received classical piano training at the age of 12. Moving from Pretoria to Cape Town at the age of 19, Markus has been constantly developing his potent blend of hip hop influenced beats, glitches and ambient atmospheric sounds coupled with his classically trained musical knowledge. These days Markus is a major DJ and his sets are as legendary as his history.

Markus graduated from the Pro Arte School of music, art and drama in Pretoria, where he created a number of theatrical writings and won school awards for music and literature. After moving to Cape Town, he formed alliances with other musicians. The earliest of these was alongside IDM producer Felix Laband. Together they created ‘Killed by Dwarf’, a series of experiments spawned from jam sessions which were never released.

In 2012 he released a 12 track album, "Not, I but A friend”.  Available for a time as a free download, but now getting a full release, the thirteen tracks offer a 50 minute musical journey characterized by  jazzy ambience, cinematic soundscapes and a great mix of synthetic and real instrumentation.

Each song on the album was written as classical notation and was recorded in Milestone and Resonance studios between 2008 and 2010.  Filled with haunted vocals, plaintive clarinets and classical strings the album offers us an etheric soundscape to a journey through underworlds.
Members of the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra have performed the songs live, alongside opera diva Magdaleen Minnaar and singer Inge Beckmann.

Most of the tracks follow a similar pattern, with sampled vocals mixing with live voice over synthesized backing overlaid with clarinets, cellos and marimbas. The whole album has a jazzy feel muck like that of some of FAX label releases by artists like David Moufang and the sadly missed Pete Namlook. Indeed if this album had been released by FAX some years ago then you can bet that collectors would now be paying high prices for it.

Typical of the music here is opening track ‘Lillian’ which opens with a spooky sampled female voice opining that she can ‘feel the horror of its eyes’ before being joined by wordless vocals over a theme that is very similar to some of Coils soundtrack material. Clarinets add a real filmic feel and the track would not be out of place opening a classic horror film.

The rest of the album continues in similar vein with themes of classical dark ambience on ‘Strangely, slowly’ and the modern classicism of ‘Red Queen’.

This is a great album to chill out to if you like a little more substance to you ambience than the usual soulless New Age fare. Put it on, turn down the lights and voyage in inner space.