Canterbury 2.8 – Magick Brother Mystic Sister part 2

In the first part of the interview with Eva Muntada and Xavi Sandoval, the two main protagonists in Barcelona band Magick Brother Mystic Sister, we talked about their visits in Canterbury in 2000 and 2002 which sparked much of their interest in music covered in these pages, along with details of the long road towards creating their first album, which was released in 2020. In this second part we talk about the band as a live act, the ‘Tarot’ project which has spanned two separate albums, the first released earlier this year, and the second which is just about to make its appearance, as well as their part in unearthing a slice of Gong history from 1973.

After a four year gap, Magick Brother Mystic Sister re-emerged earlier this year with Tarot 1, the first part of companion albums covering interpretations of the meanings of the 22 major cards in a tarot deck. The music has changed too, with the pieces aired on the first volume of Tarot being by and large more reflective and dream-like than material on their debut album.

Xavi: This album can be seen as if it were a card reading and by some kind of cosmic chance these songs have appeared. We have tried to convey them as best as possible. The Tarot can be seen as a collection of knowledge from the ancient world. It has served and will continue to be a source of inspiration for countless artists. This has been our small contribution to give our thanks to all Tarot lovers.

Thinking about it, a lot of things have changed: the working method, the fact that the compositions were made during the pandemic had a lot of influence… but at the same time it gave us a few very valuable months to try things out in the studio…

It has also been a challenge to create the Tarot concept with 22 songs, having to adhere to certain parameters regarding their meaning or the length of the songs… Although many ideas on Tarot part 1 also come from improvisations, others were prepared beforehand in a more concrete direction. Of course, the change in the formation also influences this. Alex is a very powerful drummer with a new energy that is much needed on this album.

In this Tarot card we wanted each Arcanum to have its own focus, following the characteristics of each figure a little, but also letting yourself go without limits. Some ideas were quite old and we didn’t want to leave them behind so we took them up again with a new energy, maybe it has more of a krautrock, electronic music or acid folk feel to it…

Eva: I remember a pretty dark time during Covid and we weren’t at that exciting point of the beginning of the first album, that one took us too long and we wanted to recover other influences. Entering the world of Tarot requires very deep introspective work so the music took over.

There is also a change in focus in terms of instrumentation and the musicians involved. Whilst tracks such as ‘The Chariot’ and ‘The Justice’ in particular recall the overt Canterbury influences of  of the first album, the music elsewhere is more introspective, and the focus of the gloriously anachronistic music has moved from bossa nova, weaving flute and Dave Sinclair keyboard sounds to a more dreamlike 60s folky feel. It also introduces the sitar of Tony Jagwal, most spectacularly on ‘The Hierophant’.

Xavi: In the previous formation, drums, bass and keyboard, and perhaps because of the type of composition, the flute had a lot of space for solos.

The change of components and the entry of Tony Jagwar allowed us to give way to new sounds, to open up to new ideas, to be more expansive and not stay in the same formula.

Tony is a highly virtuosic sitarist and guitarist as you will hear in the second part.

We have also used synthesizer sounds more and I have been able to develop more acoustic guitars, mandolin, space guitars… in other types of compositions.

During the course of our conversation back in 2020, Eva told me the story of her’s and Xavi’s role in unearthing an unusual Gong video dating back to 1973. Eva told me that their connection with Daevid Allen continued after the Canterbury Sound festival in 2000.

Eva: We saw Gong on other occasions, once at a concert in Huesca (near Zaragoza in Spain in 2001). Daevid asked us if we had a car to go on tour with them and help the light technician, unfortunately the car was not ours and we had to return it, too bad. We met Gilli Smith, a woman with such kind energy, wise and lovely.

We learned of the existence of a lost film of a Gong concert at Montserrat Abbey in the early 70’s through a friend of ours who had previously been a monk. Daevid called him “Brother Francis” and he was the person who opened the door to the Monastery for them

Eva sent me the email thread from 2006 she had exchanged with Daevid which showed the exchange of information ‘… One day chatting about music with Francesc, he
explained an anecdote from his youth, when he was a monk at the Montserrat Monastery. Once a very special girl called Maggie Thompson knocked on the monastery’s door and started to talk him about a band very interested in the goddess and the black virgin, and to discover the theluric and mystic centre of Montserrat. They really wanted to play at the monastery. And yes! We realised that it only could have been you, the Gong Family!.. After some years looking for it, Francesc has found a copy of it that you might not have. We have it now, and we think it belongs to you’ (excerpts from email from Eva to Daevid Allen, 2006)

We obtained the film to send to Daevid… It is the film that was released on DVD…

I asked about the band’s live identity, as there is very little (although nevertheless stunning) evidence of the band playing live online, and this led to discussion of the music’s audience:

Eva: We have done concerts in a little church  were we rehearsed and made small creations with other musicians, violinists, classical guitarists, etc. Although we have worked on playing songs live, for the most part we are a studio group. In Barcelona you must pay to play which complicates things a lot.

Xavi: When the first album came out there were a lot of (COVID) restrictions and although it was a shame, we learned that for us it is more important to do concerts that have something special and to play in the best possible conditions (I don’t mean just economic ones) since this music is complex to perform live, it requires time and rehearsals and lately we have dedicated that time more to creation, recording, publishing, with everything that entails today… But it is very possible that a live presentation of the Tarot will be made.

Eva: I think (our audience) is also international, thanks to social networks and the globalized world. Perhaps it also counts that in other countries there is a musical culture where this type of initiatives are appreciated in a different way, but here they also follow us, and we are very grateful to all those who listen to us, I think that everywhere there are those oases of people that you get to know and connect with.

We also talked, as this article is part of the Facelift’s ‘Canterbury 2.0’ series, as to how the band felt about being afforded such a tag, and whether it fairly reflected their own influences.

Xavi: I remember the first time I heard Caravan’s ‘In the Land of Grey and Pink’ at a friend’s house, although we already knew something about Soft Machine, Egg, Gong, Arthur Brown and King Crimson… but that album introduced us even more to this style.

Eva: I remember going into a record store and seeing the cover of Soft Machine, it really caught my attention, I bought it and that’s where it started… In the same store they told me about Caravan… On another occasion, a Gong song was playing in a nightclub and I went to the DJ to ask him what it was. More or less at the same time I went to an after-party where Xavi played records, when we weren’t together yet, I was really struck by the selection, Tim Blake, Steve Hillage, etc…

Albums like ‘The Crazy World of Arthur Brown’, ‘You’ by Gong, ‘Third’ by Soft Machine were initiation albums for us and the beginning from which we began to discover more and more..

Xavi: We connect in a very deep way… because of the experiences we have lived following these groups, their stories, their members, for years it has been the soundtrack that has accompanied us.

Eva: We have played some of their songs and we learned a lot studying them and so many others. But the influence is evident in the techniques, the bars, the tempos, the sounds, the harmonies etc.

Xavi: There are many factors but I suppose it was a natural evolution from listening to British bands from the 60s to ending up with the Canterbury sound. There are incredible common elements, very virtuosic drums and bass, long solos and intertwined passages, the 7/4 time signatures and polyrhythms, the sense of humour, pataphysical, the use of the organ and mellotron with distortion, the flute and the saxophone, Steve Hillage style delay guitars or the influence of John Coltrane, the flexible and modal harmonies, all loaded with imagination and cosmic utopias.

Eva: Those who know this style will always defend it as a great moment in progressive music. In Barcelona many of these groups were very popular in the 70s and were a great influence on bands here. Many of them, like Kevin Ayers, spent their time in Ibiza and Mallorca and had a very direct relationship here, in concerts and even appearing on some music programmes on public television in Spain, so from what we know they were valued here although obviously not everything they deserved, perhaps because they were part of a counterculture environment and the political situation that existed here.

Finally, having not yet heard Tarot 2 (the plan was always to release the albums almost simultaneously, but in fact the latter is now more likely to appear now in November 2024) I asked how this latest release would take things forward:

Eva: It will follow the line of Tarot 1 because the relationship with the cards is maintained and we will play with that symbiosis, perhaps part 2 will be more lunar and there will be ambient passages, folk, space rock, or a kind of Hindu raga, but there will also be something more in the Canterbury style, lately we have been classified as a style … dreamprog … and I think it is quite accurate!

The band’s debut album can be listened to and purchased here: https://magicbrothermysticsister.bandcamp.com/album/magick-brother-mystic-sister-2

Tarot 1 is available here: https://magicbrothermysticsister.bandcamp.com/album/tarot-part-i and here https://www.soundeffect-records.gr/tarot-pt-i

Tarot 2 is available for pre-order here: https://magicbrothermysticsister.bandcamp.com/album/tarot-part-ii

Watch Magick Brother Mystic Sister videos here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8I5vUBFWFX6wh0Q0cXPNdg

For other interviews in the Canterbury 2.0 series, please click here