Macha was an experimental post-rock band from

Athens, Georgia Athens, officially Athens–Clarke County, is a consolidated city-county and college town in the U.S. state of Georgia. Athens lies about northeast of downtown Atlanta, and is a satellite city of the capital. The University of Georgia, the sta ...

composed of brothers Josh McKay (founder/singer/multi-instrumentalist), Mischo McKay (drums/percussion), Kai Reidl (multi-instrumentalist) and Wes Martin (multi-instrumentalist). Macha's music combined the precision tension-and-release post-rock of

Mogwai Mogwai () are a Scottish post-rock band, formed in 1995 in Glasgow. The band consists of Stuart Braithwaite (guitar, vocals), Barry Burns (guitar, piano, synthesizer, vocals), Dominic Aitchison (bass guitar), and Martin Bulloch (drums). Mog ...

with the lush, hypnotic grind of My Bloody Valentine, along with elements of post-punk, kraut-rock and especially

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

Gamelan Gamelan () ( jv, ꦒꦩꦼꦭꦤ꧀, su, ᮌᮙᮨᮜᮔ᮪, ban, ᬕᬫᭂᬮᬦ᭄) is the traditional ensemble music of the Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese peoples of Indonesia, made up predominantly of percussive instruments. T ...

. The CMJ New Music Report opined that the band "may have invented a new genre - call it Indo-rock." They incorporated a variety of instruments into their sets:

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...

nese

zither Zithers (; , from the Greek word ''cithara'') are a class of stringed instruments. Historically, the name has been applied to any instrument of the psaltery family, or to an instrument consisting of many strings stretched across a thin, flat ...

, Balinese

bamboo flute The bamboo flute, especially the bone flute, is one of the oldest musical instruments known. Examples of Paleolithic bone flutes have survived for more than 40,000 years, to be discovered by archaeologists. While the oldest flutes currently kn ...

, hammered dulcimer,

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state ...

an slide guitar, talempong nipple gongs and

Nepal Nepal (; ne, :ne:नेपाल, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in S ...

ese

shawm The shawm () is a conical bore, double-reed woodwind instrument made in Europe from the 12th century to the present day. It achieved its peak of popularity during the medieval and Renaissance periods, after which it was gradually eclipsed by th ...

s, vibraphone, and a 1970s-era thrift-store organ called the Fun Machine. The band released their self-titled debut album in 1998 for

Jetset Records Jetset Records was a New York-based indie rock record label. Founded by Shelley Maple in 1996, the label's first release was a reissue of German punk rock band The Golden Lemons' fourth album, ''Punkrock''. The label has released music by a vari ...

. The album made the top five on both the CMJ and Gavin College Radio Charts. In 1999 they released ''See It Another Way'' (Jetset), which held the #1 position on the CMJ College Radio charts for 3 weeks that year. They also teamed up with

Bedhead BedHead is a comedy web series created by Jon Dalgaard, Claire Phillips, Tom Keele, Reece A. Jones & Benjamin Mathews. Filmed in Sydney, Australia, the series allows the audience to hear the thoughts of two old friends, Paul and Sarah, who end up ...

a year later for the mini-album ''Macha Loved Bedhead'' (Jetset 2000). Four years since their last full-length, the group returned with ''Forget Tomorrow'' (Jetset 2004) expanding their sound and venturing into more dance-music territories. Josh McKay is currently a member of the

indie rock Indie rock is a subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the music they produc ...

band Deerhunter, and records solo material under the name Abandon the Earth Mission (A.T.E.M.) in Athens.

Discography

Albums

*1998: ''Macha'' *1999: ''See It Another Way'' *2000: ''Macha Loved Bedhead'' *2004: ''Forget Tomorrow''

References

External links

Macha
at

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...

{{Authority control American post-rock groups Musical groups from Georgia (U.S. state)