artist : Martyn
title : Great Lengths
label : 3024
cat# : 3024005CD
genre : Bass
street date : 2009-00-00
tracks : 14
bitrate : 165 kbps avg. 44.1/Joint Stereo
size : 89.32 mb
source : CD
type : Retail
url :
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"Undoubtedly the most anticipated album of the last 12 months, Martyn's
debut full length arrives amidst a cacophany of fanfare and media hype,
but is it any cop? We'll have to go with the concensus on this one,
because as dubstep albums go, this is a right killer and pretty much
exactly what we expected from this incredibly talented producer. The
dubstep scene has thrown up a few auteurs in it's time, but hardly any as
single minded yet expansively influenced as Martyn. Coming from a
background in D'n'B, with releases for Revolve:r and Bassbin, Martyn has
proven that he has a keener and more discerning set of lugs than the rest
of the scene with DJ sets drawing for prime Detroit techno, Berlin dub
house and minimal and UK broken beats besides the usual dubstep, all
obviously informing his multi faceted ouevre, which he simply sums up as
"The Martyn Sound". It takes a great deal of skill and an idiomatic spirit
to cut through so many styles and still emerge without it sounding like a
glut of mismatched angles, but Martyn has made this his stock in trade.
'Great Lengths' is rammed full of these stylistic fissions. It's very hard
to mistake the opener to the CD 'The Only Choice' as anything but a Martyn
track, while 'Krdl-t-grv' only serves to solidify this with a stunning
broken beat exercise rattling with intricately woven layers of junglist
percussion and climactic synth pressure, at once made for the rave, the
headphones and the bedroom. 'Seventy Four' is destined to be a future
classic, to our mind the first time he's released a track below 130bpm,
with a Theo Parrish indebted Detroit houser swirling with the same jazzy
abstraction but just smudged in all the right places by deft Martyn
brushstrokes. The already established classic 'Vancouver' makes a pivotal
appearance, elevating the path towards the album's centrepiece 'These
Words' ft. a ball clutching falsetto from Bad Company's dBridge over tight
skipping garage tech constructions. This follows neatly into 'Bridge', the
much discussed solo piano interlude which isn't nearly as painful or
cheesy as it could have been, and onto the smartly broken Burial-esque
syncopations of 'Hear Me' before the clandestine murk of Spaceape's
delivery over mystical Mid-Eastern percussion and crushed blue velvet
textures on 'Is This Insanity'. Finishing on 'Natural Selection' is a very
canny move, meaning that all but the most emotionally redundant of
listeners should be left with a warm glow and almost guaranteed gooseflesh
when those chords kick in. It's unlikely that anyone will top this
masterpiece in the dubstep scene in 2009, but we're more than happy to
hear any contenders. Martyn can sit proud knowing he's made one of the
most soulful, rhythmically rich and inviting albums of this year.
Essential purchase!"
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01 The Only Choice 3:45
02 Krdl-T-Grv 5:30
03 Right?Star! 5:21
04 Seventy Four 6:55
05 Little Things 4:19
06 Vancouver 5:12
07 These Words (ft. dBridge) 5:58
08 Bridge 1:49
09 Elden St 5:34
10 Far Away 5:44
11 Hear Me 4:41
12 Is This Insanity? (ft. Spaceape) 5:01
13 Brilliant Orange 3:00
14 Natural Selection 13:29
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