Mark McGuire

Prolific experimental musician Mark McGuire makes ambient collages while working under a variety of names, including Sun Watcher and Peoples Parties, and side by side with Daniel Lopatin of Oneohtrix Point Never as Skyramp Skyramps. The former member of droney Cleveland trio Emeralds used a four-track along with his loop pedals for 2009’s Losing Sleep, which combined synthesizer and television samples with layers of delayed guitar arpeggios. The same year also saw him release literally dozens of limited-edition cassettes and CD-Rs, including VDSQ: Solo Acoustic, Vol. 2, Off in the Distance, and Tidings/Amethyst Waves. That said, McGuire considers the release of Living with Yourself in 2010 on Editions Mego to be his first proper album release. The set, full of his trademark loops, delays, and splices, was reviewed well and led to the 2011 collaborative album Trouble Books & Mark McGuire on the latter's Bark & Hiss imprint. Editions Mego also issued a double-disc retrospective of his earlier limited-edition recordings entitled A Young Person's Guide to Mark McGuire in April, before releasing his second album, Get Lost, in September. 2014 saw the first solo work from McGuire since the 2013 disbandment of Emeralds with the lushly expanded instrumentation of Along the Way. He followed up in the fall of that same year with an EP entitled Noctilucence. ~ Jason Lymangrover & Thom Jurek, Rovi