"The struggle of a one-man-band is that your defining characteristics are utterly your own. There's no flavor to be found from the inclusion of a wild drummer or a stoic bassist - everything comes directly from whatever you decide to include in your lonely presence on stage and record. Mig Artugue is the defining voice behind Too Long Sparks, which takes spare drum machines and layers looped guitar and ukulele on top to create a moody atmosphere that builds with increasing anxiety. His vocals drift from laconic to panicked, lending an urgency to his minimalistic compositions that sounds like nothing more than one man having a nervous breakdown in the recording studio. His time spent in Bay Area punk bands may inform his barely contained intensity with Too Long Sparks, but background is unimportant when faced with the eerily dissonant pop songs Artugue produces".
“Mig Artugue is the defining voice behind (Ativandal), which takes spare drum machines and layers looped guitar and ukulele on top to create a moody atmosphere that builds with increasing anxiety...His time spent in Bay Area punk bands may inform his barely contained intensity with (Ativandal), but background is unimportant when faced with the eerily dissonant pop songs Artugue produces.”
Artist Bio....
Bouts of anxiety and an iconoclastic attitude towards convention in songwriting are fundamentals behind Migi Artugue’s musical alias Ativandal. It is a suitable moniker for a project which builds seductively troubled, ambient pop songs by layering beautifully discordant guitars and ukuleles with found sounds, while Artugue's expressive tenor lilts from narcotized falsetto to the occasional unfettered roar.
An Australian-born songwriter who grew up under the murky skies of the American Pacific Northwest, Artugue's inspiration covers a broad spectrum of genres, among them indie, folk, electronic, experimental, and musique concrete. A perpetual fan of music's past and what it has yet to become, Artugue's Ativandal weaves you a darkly beautiful score about the wrenching of guts and the love for the unexpected.
Review by Adam McKinney for NorthwestMilitary.com Feb 4, 2015:
Genre Indie
Styles Folktronica, Dream Pop, Experimental, Prog Pop, DIY, Post Rock, Ambient, Singer/Songwriter