MARTYN – GREAT LENGTHS (3024)
When I was coming to the end of my drum&bass DJ’ing days, one record I used to play every single set (no matter what the crowd was like) was a tune by Martyn called Virgo. A beautiful track released on DJ Flight’s imprint Play:Musik in early ‘06, Virgo is characterized by its simple and soulful melody, sentimental tone, playful and bouncy bass line, syncopated dusty beats and muffled samples. It was Martyn’s final release as a drum&bass producer, unleashing the incomparable Broken/ Shadowcasting dubstep 12″ the following year through Marcus Intalex’s label Revolve:r.
At many times on Martyn’s debut album Great Lengths I am reminded of the same qualities in Virgo; it’s a proficiently crafted collection of soulful, playful tracks with slivers of sentimental moments. The way Martyn crafts sound in his music makes it very easy to listen to; there is a slinky, soft edge to things, no sound offends the ear. There is also something of a mature tone to the album overall – the tenor of someone comfortable or more or less at ease with themselves. For these reasons it lacks much of the dark tension found in other dubstep opuses such as 2562’s Aerial or Burial’s Untrue. Instead, Great Lengths is a warmer, lighter-hearted album with a more ambiguously melancholy periphery. As Martyn says of his own work, “I always like to think my stuff is ‘music for a warm but rainy day.’” That’s not to say the album lacks moody or darker moments such as the serene Brilliant Orange near the end.
Opening with maybe the darkest song on the album, Great Lengths commences with The Only Choice; a swaying, percussion-driven track with repetitive speak-and-spell samples “3, 0, 2, 4″ (a reference to Martyn’s record label name of the same numbers) that calls to mind vibes of early Boards of Canada. The mood transitions quickly for the next few tracks with the ‘ardcore-jungle-fused krdl-t-grv, the bouncy and lush right?star! and the 4×4 warehouse jam Seventy Four. These three up-tempo tracks take us into two of my favorite moments on the album, Little Things and Vancouver. Little Things is classic Martyn, pulling all his staple elements together for a really artful dance floor track. After already appearing on 12″, it’s nice to see the seminal techno/dub-entrenched Vancouver presented again in context. While These Words is not my personal favorite track on the album, the vocal styling and sounds in this much-anticipated collaboration with dBridge (of drum&bass fame) is certainly a commendable attempt at something different.
Two other stand-out tracks for me are Elden St - a lush and warm 4×4 techno roller, with soaring pads done in a classic Martyn style – and Far Away, which for my money is the album’s highlight; Martyn at his best, this superb tune is dance floor bliss. Emotive and intriguing, groovy as hell, warm and musical and all-around classy, Far Away encompasses all of the qualities Martyn’s debut album and musical canon represent to date.
