Martes martes: Dragon cat fox cat scn (Expanded Edition) (Editions JAV, 2023)
October 1, 2023 at 3:28 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Martes martes: Dragon cat fox cat scn (Expanded Edition)
Martes martes was a solo project of former WCBN DJ Jeffrey Nolan Carey during the 2000s.
This CD contains an album he released on Jib Kidder’s short-lived Capt Bass label, plus an EP on another long-gone imprint, Burning Tongue Records. Carey plays a lot of delicate acoustic instruments, and even toys, including harp, dulcimer, recorders, French horn, and more, as well as samples and Mario Paint. It’s very delicate and homemade, not unlike Frank Pahl’s music and films, or the fragmentary folk of Maher Shalal Hash Baz. There’s also a significant new age influence here, but the earlier private press weirdo kind, not the commercialized health food store and spa kind. It’s all playful and curious, and “miniature” enough to appeal to fans of strange experimental indie stuff, yet it feels too well-crafted to tag it as “lo-fi”. Drum machines, clapping, piping woodwinds, and sophisticated guitar plucking collide on the gleeful march “Pine Marten Traveling Song”. Other songs make nice music for playing in the forest during autumn. “A Ydych Chi Wedi Gweld Bele’r Coed Yn Eryn” takes things in a different direction, with mbira melodies and eerie whirring. “Martens at Night” is a lovely string-heavy piece, and the string quartet version of “Autumn Walking Song” (track 14) is also in this vein. “Foggy Morning” starts bleary and then wakes up with a barrage of ringing alarm samples. Curiously, the CD ends with hissing and beating sounds of a lung machine.
The Answer Is In The Beat 
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