Forced March (2005, Western Vinyl)

Songs:

• "All That Spring You Could See Halley's Comet"
• "I'm So Tired of Violets (Take Them All Away)"
• "Our First Communist Psychic Researcher"
• "Bear Goes Shopping"
• "A Brief Stroll -- The Velvet Parasol"
• "When the Telegram Arrived That She Was Dying"
• "I'll Know That I'll Be Ture"

Available directly from the band:

Also available from:

• Western Vinyl
• CD Baby
• Insound
• Amazon
• eMusic
• iTunes
• Rhapsody

Press for Forced March:

"So take it for granted that Madagascar sound like street music from a mythical, lugubrious Eastern European city stranded somewhere between the time of the Magyars and the time of the Soviet Union and dig a little deeper. As you slowly get acquainted with this music and its careful rhythms, its focus on repetition of phrases as a means to beauty, its sometimes aridly intellectual (as opposed to visceral) bent, you may notice that this is post rock as pre-rock, that if you took these songs and performed them on more conventional instruments you'd have something not miles away from Tortoise or a vocal-less, gentler Spiderland."
-- Ian Mathers, Stylus Magazine

"Why is accordion music so sad, even when it's happy? There's something about that reedy wheeze, even in a waltz or polka, that conveys world-weariness. Here, this mournful instrument plays against with the weird hum of bowed saw, the plink of glockenspiel and the subliminal heft of stand up bass in a mostly instrumental web of Eastern European melancholy."
-- Jennifer Kelly, Splendid Magazine

"When's the last time you felt like getting all evangelical about Yiddish folk music and chamber music? Granted, it could have been last week or last night but for most of us, it's been never, at least not until the emergence of this all-too-short platter from Madagascar, a collective that actually hails from Baltimore, MD. Spacious in sound and effortless in its execution the seven-song CD features highlights such as the haunting "I'm So Tired Of Violets (Take Them All Away)," "Our First Communist Psychic Researcher," or the almost whimsical "Bear Goes Shopping" and the stunningly melancholic "When The Telegram Arrived That She Was Dying." Forced March - like Madagascar itself - is a fine example of truth and beauty all rolled into one."
-- Jedd Beaudoin, Copper Press

"Somewhere between the faux-Eastern European vibe of DeVotchKa and the post-rock gloom of Canadian bands like Do Make Say Think and Explosions in the Sky, Forced March is an endlessly fascinating and enjoyable album."
-- Stewart Mason, AllMusic

[home]