Magic Tusk Creates an Epic Imaginary Score with Behold, Her Majesty

Magic Tusk's debut album, Behold, Her Majesty, sounds like it could be a soundtrack for a new Christopher Nolan movie. However, the record's architect, Sammy Gonzalez Zeira, says dance, not cinema, inspired the record's five songs.

"I have a friend, Marla, who lost her brother," Gonzalez Zeira tells New Times. "She was in a lot of pain when she danced. I wrote the music on guitar while watching her movements. I thought a lot about growing up, shedding your past, and about truly becoming an adult."

He went into the studio and recorded what he wrote using only his electric guitar but felt the music needed more. As the founder of the nonprofit Young Musicians Unite and the Wynwood School of Music, Gonzalez Zeira has connected with many budding musicians, but listening back to the first versions of the songs on Behold, Her Majesty, Gonzalez Zeira thought about his first music student, Sebastian Zel.

Starting under Gonzalez Zeira's tutelage at 6, Zel grew up to be a professional musician and composed the score for the HBO short La Piel De Ayer.

"Sebastian added his Moog synthesizer," Gonzalez Zeira says of Zel's contributions to the album. "Now it could be 23 minutes taking you on a quest evoking emotions. Hopefully, it makes people feel better."

Some of Gonzalez Zeira's influences on the album included film composer Hans Zimmer, prog-rockers Mars Volta, and, most crucially, Scottish band Mogwai.

"I went to the music festival in Barcelona, Primavera. I saw Mogwai play the whole album, Every Country's Sun, live," he says. "They captured the audience with just instrumentals. After that, I wanted to make a record that seems like it goes with a film but without a film."

While Gonzalez Zeira would love to play the songs live one day, he figures the second Magic Tusk album, already in the planning stages, should be a bit easier to perform in a live setting.

"The next one will be more guitar driven with bass and drums. Magic Tusk will be my way to work with other people," he says. "It's my way to look around for people whose music I'm inspired by and find a way to make music with them."

The name Magic Tusk came out of a vision that wouldn't get out of Gonzalez Zeira's head.

"I saw a magical elephant that was strong and beautiful. I thought that was a great representation of the guitar," he explains. "I'm a big believer in manifestation. When you want great things to happen, you have to manifest them."

Still, the manifestation of Behold, Her Majesty was a long process.

"It took me three years to make it. Writing was quick. The bones of the writing only took two days. Recording the guitars only took a week," Gonzalez Zeira says. "It was figuring out how to layer it that took forever. I had someone else mixing it at first, then I went back and ended up mixing it myself. Everything you hear on it is an actual instrument. A lot of the abstract things are guitars with crazy pedals."

And now it is here for you to behold: