"On Joshua Marquez’s noise album, Violent Yellow, he finds a great way to start the album. In the song “Molt,” it suggests to me that it is time for the listener to sluff off that layer of the world that has stuck to them, shedding it so that you can enter fully into the experience to come. It’s pretty noisy, a little punk rock, like it’s a bit of an ordeal to go through that spiritually. But the next track comes in smooth and gentle, as new beginnings can tend to be.

Like a light rain, the guitars and synths that open the song “Petrichor” come down in wisps. Except for storms, there is nothing violent about rain. It is like a little experience of oneness with the water that makes up a large percentage of who we are. I get the sense of darkness, with glints of reflection as water is wont to produce. The guitar pitter patters in electric form, howls like an electronic wind. In the same way that the sound of rain puts you in a meditative state, this track hypnotizes you with its beautiful, sporadic sounds, until it picks up towards the end in crashing distorted waves. It ramps up, until near chaos, and then it’s done, just like a passing storm.

It is followed by “Vignette I,” an atmospheric piano piece that could soundtrack a black and white film sequence. It’s simple but evocative. With a little distortion making an appearance here and there. “Vignette II” gets a little more complex on the piano, as if conflict is being introduced to the story. The piano like a character speaking an internal monologue or giving voice to a significant interaction between two people. The high “B” note is hit consistently throughout the piece, from first to last bar, like a homing device or morse code.

“Vignette III,” also a piano piece, is a sort of conclusion or reflection. There is more buzzing guitar in it, more tinkling piano, more of a feeling of internal cognizance or external movement, like watching the world go by out of the windows of a train. Again it has repetitive notes, which lends itself to the droney ambience, but it also has classical sounding arpeggios. If these vignettes were one whole film, each one becomes more complex, until you know the characters and the scenery more fully and deeply by the end.

The next song, “Mural,” is a bit unsettling. It doesn’t have the feeling, to me, of looking at a mural, but perhaps of a mural looking at me. It’s spooky, ghostly, something like the unexpected squeaking of water pipes in the night. What if paintings were to look back at us as we look at them? What kind of interpretation would they have of our inner art? As the song progresses it becomes more and more violent (“violent yellow”?). We and our surroundings seem to be at odds. We don’t belong here, it seems to be saying. In its evocation of emotion, the squealing guitars and distortion make you wonder, what kind of anxiety lurks in our deepest, darkest corners?

“Mandala” however is a more peaceful piece. Like different points on the mandala, the guitar hits different pleasing notes in a scale, straight and clean, like lines drawn with colorful ink. Because of the title, I think of something from a different world, something gentle, but alien. Something with a pattern that I’d never thought of producing on my own. “Tao” which translates to “the way” in buddhist thinking, covers a lot of ground as perhaps the most visceral of the pieces on this album. It encompasses a greater spirituality than any of the other pieces, perhaps. It increases and increases in distorted effect as the piece progresses. Like a world where every animal gets to make its noisy call, until it is a cacophony. A world full of voices. And then the noise finally subsides.

Like the entire album, the last song suggests to me, that we each have a voice to speak, to fill the silence with meaning and mood. We have a limited time to speak our piece on the earth, whether it’s through cabinet making, scientific investigation, or ambient guitar and piano. Like many ambient albums that I’ve listened to, Joshua Marquez’s album has a distinct voice throughout, a certain palette that he works from. It’s pretty minimal, but evocative nonetheless.

Some songs, like the “Vignettes I-III” are connected, some are not, but it’s all his voice. It would be very interesting to see what visuals Joshua would accompany the pieces with. Ambient music, to me, is great soundtrack music. Especially, in this instance, to avant-garde footage. City scapes, people interacting, scenes during the night time. Pipes and rain and animals squawking. It is hard to say what would be more satisfying, seeing what the creator intended visually or to let your imagination go wild in listening.

This is an album that shows you that not all music is verse, chorus, bridge, but some of it is just noise to create an atmosphere that sinks into your skin, and moves your heart to the artist’s world for a period of time. Some ambient artists seem more concerned with theme than Joshua’s. The title “Vignette” for example is super open ended. But he certainly wants to get you into his emotional world from start to finish, see what he and his instruments can create in your spirit for four to eight minutes at a time. It’s a bit of a harsh listen, reflecting perhaps, the distortion of the world. Like “Violent Yellow” suggests, we are sometimes the “victim” of the different messages that the world or artists send to us, whether it’s advertising or nature, blistering guitar or moving piano. An album that is upsetting and calming in equal measure."
-Greg Walker, Prism Reviews

"Exploring nearly the entire spectrum of music, we’re incredibly impressed with the latest record coming from Joshua Marquez, titled Violent Yellow. Please keep reading for our full and in-depth look at the album, in addition to a background on the artist.

Currently based out of Philadelphia, Joshua Maruqez is a Filipinx-American composer, guitarist, and sound artist whose music looks within “the liminal space between tone/noise and digital/analog as a means to investigate the complexities and duality of Asian American identity”. On his thought provoking new record Violent Yellow, we couldn’t help but instantly feel enlightened after listening to it. At this point, we highly recommend you give it a listen as soon as possible.

Calming in nature, but exuding massive amounts of emotion and passion, Joshua Marquez has expertly hand crafted a complete and precise work that breaks the mold of our typical submission. To begin, we are suggesting all who listen go in with an open mind, as well as the best pair of headphones you own in order to not miss the seemingly endless amounts of subtleties presented within the record. The amount you could miss is staggering, so please take that into consideration.

What felt like a film score from start to finish could also open itself up to ambient listening too. It’s already been reviewed and commented on as “cutting-edge” and “haunting”, and while we can see that, there’s also so many other equal describers that popped up. Every song has taken on a life of its own and it truly challenges the listener to get into a headspace and expand their mind as they listen. The pure instrumentals allow for the listener to forget everything going on in their lives and give way to the music happening in their ears.

There isn’t a standalone track that came off to us as a favorite, rather this felt more like a cohesive listen that needed to be listened to from start to finish to really get the point across. As mentioned, every song projects different feelings, but it’s all very much cut from the same talented composer. Joshua Marquez has sincerely expanded our taste in listening and presented a masterful work that we know we’ll be coming back to for years to come.

It should probably go without saying, but we implore you to dive into this record head first as soon as possible. We’ve done the easy part and included the important links below in order to listen and follow along for more."
-Austin Sher, We Write About Music