EXCELLENT psychedelic music by Chicago’s Mako Sica. I’d never heard of these guys before I gave this a listen, but this tape, which was “recorded by the band in an old attic with creaky floor boards, rusty pipes, stained rugs, a hot water heater, and a borrowed 8 track reel to reel” is, to put it simply, phenomenal.

Imagine the exploratory, reverb’d flow-motion of Magnog…the dirge-shuffle of Sixteen Horsepower…the shimmeringly slow-motion atmospheres of Cocteau Twins, Durutti Column, and Felt…the yearning and searching nature of spiritual & free jazz musics…and the widescreen lonesome-desert-vista twang of Ennio Morricone all coming together in a and you’ll have a good idea of what these guys sound like.

This is moody, dreamy, droney, hazy, beautifully dark stuff. I only use the aforementioned comparisons as starting points…in no way is Mako Sica a bunch of unoriginal copyists…this is passionate, thoughtful, and inspired music. These guys are quite adept at writing melodic, memorable songs that have room to improvise within, and they do that in spades while creating a palpable sense of drama through their use of dynamics. There are plenty of slow builds and tempo shifts. Brilliant musicality. And there’s a trumpet? Yes. How does it sound? Fantastic. There’s also some pleasantly unexpected moments, like the fevered shouts and wordless monk-like chants of “Dunes”, and the impossibly successful ‘4AD-meets-lost-70’s-psych-gem’ vibe of “Dethrone 1”. Really!

“Noise Attic Session 2” has so many treasures and definitely deserves repeated listens. I, for one, have been completely entranced by this tape. There’s only a mere hundred of these out in the world, so by all means seek this out and get yer mitts on a copy of this eclectic, heady brew. Narcodelic stuff, baby! 9/10 -- Daniel DeRogatis (2 February, 2010)