11 September 2024

Magick Brother & Mystic Sister – A chat with Eva

Magick Brother & Mystic Sister is one of the most promising, interesting, and fascinating bands that came as a thunderbolt in 2020 with their self-titled debut LP album, an album that by the way blew me away from the very first time that I listened to, and album that managed to hit the 2nd position with the Best releases of 2020, an album that made me wrote things like “What a wonderful super mind-blowing SURPRICE from Barcelona, Spain! Not far away from Tibidabo Mountain (The magic mountain of Barcelona) the newcomers in our Amazing Underground Psychedelic World, Magick Brother & Mystic Sister are here to “agitate” the waters of PSYCH! Combining Psychedelia, Canterbury Rock, Folk, Cinemascope Music, and even some Bossa Nova, filtered through their personal 60s influences, this quartet from Barcelona delivered a memorable debut album that will keep us pretty occupied for the very next years… Who knows, maybe after a few more listenings, I will acclaim it as a “Reference Point” record to the Neo-Psychedelic Sound of the new millennium! I think I’m so addicted to the whole atmosphere and energy that this LP emits that I cannot be objective, but I’ll try…” Anyhow, for some unexplained reason, I kept putting off a chat/interview with the band. But now, with one album out (“Tarot Part 1”) and another one on the way (“Tarot Part 2”), the chance is given, the boost that I wanted is here… Mystic Sister (Eva) kindly offered to answer a few questions. The purpose of all these is to raise your interest, explore the band, listen to their music, feed your head… Enjoy…

TimeLord Michalis: Where are you located, introduce us to the band, and tell us how and when it all started with Magick Brother & Mystic Sister.

Eva Muntada: We currently live in Barcelona, near the famous Park Güell. We have a small studio where we compose and record. The band that has made the “Tarot Part 1” and Tarot Part 2” are Eva Muntada (voice, piano, and synthesizer) and Xavi Sandoval (bass and guitar) as leaders and composers and we have Alex Carmona on drums, and Tony Jagwar on sitar and guitar… MBMS it’s a project that was born some time ago with Eva and Xavi alone and then it has been growing with rehearsals with other musicians and developing its own style.

TLM: How did you pick up Magick Brother & Mystic Sister, name?

Eva: It’s always difficult to find a good name for a band, we finally found that MBMS suits us because it pretty much described our music and our interests in magic and mysticism, and on the other hand we are big fans of Gong and it’s the title of their first album.

TLM: Any previous band experience before Magick Brother & Mystic Sister?

Eva: All our life we have been related to bands, living the music from the underground. Involved in several projects, always accumulating experience to build new more interesting proposals.

TLM: I believe that Gong and especially Canterbury played a significant role in your sound. What are your influences, musically and lyrically?

Eva: Yes, we met Daevid Allen, Gilli Smith, and other members of the band… We were able to talk to them for the first time at that fantastic festival in Canterbury a long time ago… Gong and many bands within the so-called Canterbury sound, like Soft Machine, Colosseum, Caravan, King Crimson… We are passionate about the wonderful music they offered, they are masters, but we are far away from that level… it’s an honor to participate in this strange journey and bring our small tribute to all these bands.

Evidently, there are many other influences from other styles, eras, and places that fascinate us to name a few… Syd Barret, Popol Vuh, Pentangle, Ananda Shankar, Mort Garson, Electronic music, Krautrock, Italian progressive, Anatolian rock, British psychedelia, and so on…

TLM: Can you describe the music of Magick Brother & Mystic Sister?

Eva: It is difficult to describe music and even more so when it is the one you make yourself, but we try to create from different points, sometimes from intuition, improvisation, a written script, a poem, a dream, or an idea that develops until we get close to what we would like to hear. Our influences from the bands of the late 60s and ’70s have led us down this imaginative and cosmic path, which has been the closest to our way of understanding music… Trying to give back and participate in this fantastic psychedelic and magical journey.

TLM: Tell us about your self-titled debut album, released in 2020.

Eva: It’s a long story that took us a long time, with a positive and happy root, very excited to have a band and to be able to materialize in an album all those trials/errors that we made during that time, based mainly on improvisations and experiments from bass lines… On that album were also Marc Tena on drums and his partner Maya Fernandez on flute and that was the result in an album with details of Progrock and Cosmic Jazz. Although it was presented during the pandemic with a lot of problems, it had a lot of repercussions and sold out very quickly.

TLM: Please, share with us all we need to know about your newest adventure, “Tarot”, which will be released in 2 parts…

Eva: The Tarot album is a step towards a more conceptual and perhaps more psychedelic than the first one. It is based on the major arcana and the influence that the tarot has always had on us as a guide. There are 22 songs divided into 2 albums, parts I and II, and it is about that journey towards its Symbolism. The visual language it contains is very suitable to take it as inspiration and transfer it to the music. You can understand the album as a roll of cards where chance decides at that moment. Our intention was to try that each arcane had a suitable instrumentation and that the music could be related to its meaning and at the same time to be able to deepen in styles that we always liked trying to be as free as possible and to experiment.

“Part I” was released in April this year and “Part II” will be released in Winter. The 2 records in gatefold format complement each other closing an inner magic circle in which the listeners will be able to make their own card reading. For both Tarot 1 and Tarot 2 we have special collaborations in some themes…

Psychedelia will always be present because it’s music based on creative freedom, linked to the underground and counterculture

TLM: How’s the Psych underground scene over there in Spain? (Bands, places, audience…) Quite a few bands have impressed me over the last few years, such as Fogbound, Abstraccion, Mohama Saz, Moura, Stay, Ethiva, One Of These Days, Arenna…

Eva: It has gone through different phases, there was a scene in the mid-90s at least here in Barcelona. Today, it’s different although it’s a style that was always there. Apart from the music, it’s also related to certain drugs and ways of living, now there are small oases both in Spain and in the rest of the world that remain faithful to that spirit, but nothing like the scenes that were seen in the past.

Psychedelia will always be present because it’s music based on creative freedom, linked to the underground and counterculture, so we hope it will continue in some other form. We know many of the bands you mention, and they all have a lot of merit because this is a complicated country to carry out this kind of music, they all have good and passionate musicians behind them.

TLM: Future plans?

Eva: We try to live the present intensely so right now, it’s time to prepare the presentation of Tarot Part II, keep composing for another new album, and maybe some surprise concert…

TLM: Anything else that you’d like to add?

Eva: Thank you for the interview, and thanks to all the people who gave us their support, and messages, also by buying our records, we hope you enjoy the music as much as we have enjoyed creating it.