About Mark McGuire

Mark McGuire is a musician from Cleveland, Ohio, and now based in Portland, Oregon. In addition to having released a prodigious number of solo recordings, he most notably played guitar in genre-defying trio Emeralds from 2006 to 2013. Best known for his minimalist compositions using looped guitar (indebted to Manuel Göttsching among others), he has also experimented with keyboard, voice, and other instruments. His vast discography notably consists of limited edition cassettes, with releases on a host of labels starting with the now-defunct Wagon imprint run by McGuire and his former Emeralds bandmates. Other labels include Chrondritic Sound, Pizza Night, Durable Stimuli, Cylindrical Habitat Modules, and Deception Island, as well as recently on Editions Mego and Dead Oceans. In 2006 he formed Fancelions alongside Steve Hauschildt, John Elliott (Outer Space), and Erik Gamola. McGuire, Hauschildt, and Elliott began Emeralds shortly thereafter; he left the trio in January of 2013, after which Hauschildt also departed and the band promptly dissolved. His other collaborations with fellow musicians within the ambient/noise underground include Amazing Births with Julian Gulyas (Synaptic Foliage), Inner Tube with Spencer Clark (The Skaters), Mental Prism with Kathy O'Dell and Shane Mackenzie of Lambsbread, Silver Futures with Etienne Pierre Duguay (Real Estate, Predator Vision), Skyramps with Daniel Lopatin (Oneohtrix Point Never), Sun Watcher with Shane Mackenzie, and Telecat Prowlers with Mr. Matthews and Witchbeam of Telecult Powers, as well as records with Trouble Books and Nate Scheible. He has also performed and released output as The Road Chief, Cat Nap, People's Parties and The Bad Habit.