Welcome to Mixtape, our weekly feature where we hand the keys to the WASTOIDS Spotify account over to cool folks to share what they’re listening to.
Performing behind a bedazzled cloak, Spiritual Warfare and the Greasy Shadows’ Joel Marquard matches Bollywood loops, exotica grandeur, unhinged soul music, and sandblasted garage rock with absurdist reflections on everyday existence. Fans who know the Phoenix-based Marquard through his work with the indie rock bands Dear & The Headlights and Gospel Claws, the sacred music troupe Through and Through Gospel Review, and R&B act Samuel L Cool J will certainly hear traces of all those acts on records like ad hoc (Earth Libraries) and I Hope My Grave is a Gutter (Moone Records), but only after their influence has been pushed through the bizarre filter the creator and songwriter brings to his current soundscapes. Like the busted TV set he performs with on-stage, Spiritual Warfare projects its seance-ready chants from behind a cracked screen, bellowing smoke and flashing erratically. Is it music from another dimension or parallel universe? Maybe!
For Pale Horse Dry Cleaning, a Spiritual Warfare mixtape created for WASTOIDS, Marquard cut loose and went wide, offering up more than four hours of hip-hop, minimalist composition, electro punk, indie rock, synth music, and more hardly classifiable gems. Alongside garage rock by The Black Lips you’ll find Arizona-based music from Emby Alexander, Pro Teens, and Los Puchos; rap from MF Doom and Kendrick Lamar exists alongside technicolor epics from Yma Sumac and French balladeer Serge Gainsbourg. And then there’s the fiery “The Shining Path” from Sun City Girls, one of Spiritual Warfare and the Greasy Shadows’ most apt antecedents: music from the desert that pulls at strands from around the world in pursuit of some ecstatic and singularly weird vision. Dig in and enjoy this wild and long flowing mix. Check out Spiritual Warfare on Bandcamp and Instagram.
Wanna make us a playlist? Call us at 1-877-WASTOIDS and let us know what songs you’d include.