Martyn - Ghost People

01. Love And Machines feat. Spaceape
02. Viper
03. Masks
04. Distortions
05. Popgun
06. I Saw You At Tule Lake
07. Ghost People
08. Twice As
09. Bauplan
10. Horror Vacui
11. We Are You In The Future

According to Martyn himself, it's a less intimate affair than his first LP, Great Lengths, which he describes as "very personal."

"A lot of the music and the themes behind [Great Lengths] were taken out of my daily life: my sorrows and my melancholy," he says. "For this album, I chose things that are further away from me: the Ghost People theme. There are references to DJing in general. Not the jet-set DJ life, but the old Paradise Garage DJ life, where people want to share and play the music they really love, regardless of if it's trendy. Nothing fancy or flashy. Just back to the roots."

Stylistically, the album continues on the same tack as Martyn's past releases, weaving between dubstep, funky, house and techno. It shows him teaming up once again with Erosie, the go-to visual artist for Martyn's label, 3024 (not to mention RA's recent X party in Sao Paulo). In addition to the cover art, Erosie has devised visuals to accompany Martyn's upcoming live sets, dates for which have yet to be confirmed...www.residentadvisor.net

Martyn - Masks / Viper

01. Masks
02. Viper (Ghost People Edit)
03. Viper (London Arches Edit)

Eagerly anticipated return for Martyn, heralding his upcoming sophomore album on Brainfeeder. 'Masks' is suave, dynamic but rude-as-f*ck steppers' house, precision engineered to rough up dancefloors without breaking a sweat - istening to the pinched chords and pistoning, minimal drum-funk on this badboy makes pretty much all club gear we've heard this year sound a wee bit sluggish and toothless. 'Viper' appears in two versions: a kickless but still plenty 'floor-wrecking version that sound like Carl Craig with some post-junglist attitude, and then the trackier London Arches Edit. On the latter Martyn pays tribute to the ravers of SE1 with a radged-up 4/4 banger: the riffage is rudimentary, but the arrangement is complex and perfectly weight-distributed, excruciating tension and exquisite release wrought out of canny percussion edits, hectoring bleeps, low-flying strings and a groove as grimy as a club's toilet floor come 6am. Potent stuff...www.boomkat.com

Martyn & Mike Slott - Collabs Series No. 1

01 All Nights
02 Pointing Fingers

Martyn and Mike Slott collude on the first 12" of a collaborative series from All City. We'd guess there's a few of you breaking out in sweats already looking at the lineup, and the music should justify your giddiness. 'All Nights' is a seriously good-looking swagger-House riddim, all buff dub chords, rumping subs and a deadly percussive palette of slinking bells, slicing snares and densely padded kicks. If the Martyn influence is clear in that one, then 'Pointing Fingers' belies a fair input from Mike Slott, set to a grooving mid-tempo swing with cosmic harp and synth interplay on a Flying Lotus tip. Heavy...www.boomkat.com

Martyn - Left Hander / Shook Up

1. Left Hander 
2. Shook Up

Man-like-Martijn Deykers slinks into motion with two outright killers on 3024. Remarkably, this is Martyn's first solo 12" of 2010, a year in which he dropped a crucial Fabric mix and expanded his label's horizons to draw blunted and Techno sounds into the fold. With 'Left Hander' he cuts in from a broken house angle, sharing certain rhythmic traits with Altered Natives while firmly retaining his feel for soulful, classically-informed Detroit melody in grand style. On the other side, 'Shook Up' goes one step duttier, dragging the drums down to a gruffly accented swing while sly strings, twinkling keys and fluttering synth motifs imagine some infectious fusion of mad effective South London and Detroit disciplines. Basically, this 12" is lethal and your turntables want it, badly!...www.boomkat.com

Berghain 04 Part I

01. Martyn - Miniluv
02. Roman Lindau - Keppra

Coinciding with their inclusion on Ben Klock's Berghain 04 mix, Martyn and Roman Lindau drop a pair of prime technoid permutations for OstGut Ton. Martyn's 'Miniluv' pivots around a proper techno skippers pattern, nudging in his influences from Broken Beat, Dubstep and - most prominently - deepest house music to warm the cockles of yer heart and the soles of your feet. It's another matter entirely with Roman Lindau however, as he surges forward with a cavernous shifter driven by submerged bass swoops and a thrilling metallic synth motif that slices through the cut like a jet of cold air on sweat soaked skin. Two crucial cuts for the DJs and the dancers...www.boomkat.com

Martyn - Hear Me / Seventy Four Remixes

01 Hear Me (Zomby Mix)
02 Seventy Four (Redshape Mix)

Following his tremendous Fabric mix last week, Martyn offers some of his best beats to Zomby and Redshape for the first part of a killer remix package. Quite unusually, Zomby's mix spills beyond the five minute mark, giving us extra time to enjoy cruising alongside his Lazer-etched R'n'B synths and swaggering Kwaito/Funky percussion before we hit the rewind button another ten times. If you're of a dancing persuasion, this sh*t's totally vital! Meanwhile, Redshape does himself proud with the raw kink of his 'Seventy Four' remix, embellishing the warmest Detroit aspects with his arsenal of vintage FXs while keeping a rooted afro-rhythmic swing reminiscent of Theo Parrish with shuffling hi-hats, deeply padded bass thumps and strokes of barely-tamed percussion. Essential tunes, DO NOT sleep on this...www.boomkat.com

Martyn - Fabric 50

01. Hudson Mohawke – Joy Fantastic feat. Olivier Daysoul
02. Alec Wizz – Drummin’ (Louis Benedetti Drumminpella)
03. Nubian Mindz – Bossa Boogie
04. Maddslinky – Lost On Tenori Street
05. Altered Natives – Rass Out
06. Zomby – Little Miss Naughty
07. Uncle Bakongo – Afar
08. Zomby – Light Cycle
09. Deepgroove & Jamie Anderson – The Clock (Ben Klock’s Timepiece)
10. DJBone – We Control The Beat
11. Detachments – Circles (Martyn’s Round & Round Mix)
12. Joy Orbison – Brkln Clln
13. Cooly G – Feeling You
14. Martyn feat. dBridge – These Words (Roska’s Speechless Mix)
15. Kode9 – Oozi
16. Roska – Without It
17. Martyn – Friedrichstrasse
18. Levon Vincent – Air Raid
19. Martyn feat. Spaceape – Is This Insanity? (Ben Klock Mix)
20. Martyn – Seventy Four (Redshape Mix)
21. Actress – Slowjam
22. Zomby – Mercury’s Rainbow
23. 2562 – Flashback
24. Martyn – Vancouver
25. Jan Driver – Rat Alert
26. Dorian Concept – Trilingual Dance Sexperience

Like most of the artists that sign up to Fabric’s mix series, Dutchman Martijn Deijkers defies easy genre categorisation. Debut full-length Great Lengths fell nominally within the boundaries of dubstep, but like many at work within the form in 2009, Deijkers’ music was of interest mostly for the ways it wriggled shy of convention – a mellow and colourful twist on the sound, informed equally by his past in house and techno.
What this means for his Fabric mix, loosely, is a whole lot of variety. Deijkers claims it’s not specifically made to work on the dancefloor, but beyond the opening Joy Fantastic – one of the more Outkast-flavoured tracks from Hudson Mohawke’s Butter album – if anything, this mix is conspicuous for the upbeat tempos and exquisite complexity of its rhythmic programming.
While steeped in the post-UK garage and UK funky sound, it is nonetheless dominated by producers keen to put an individual stamp on their productions. So, Zomby’s Little Miss Naughty is a future-tribal bounce pockmarked with air horns and junglist slogans. Roska’s Without It is sparse UK Funky with blink-and-you’ll-miss-‘em keyboard stabs. And Dorian Concept’s Trilingual Dance Sexperience is a splattery, scattershot take on hyped-up G-funk that’s almost quease-inducing in its wonky sensory overload.
Too much of this stuff can rot your teeth, though, so Martyn also dips a little into the more reliable step of 4/4. A Ben Klock remix of his own Is This Insanity featuring sometime Kode9 collaborator Spaceape is an appealing change of pace, while DJ Bone’s We Control The Beat is crisp Detroit techno that makes its home here chiefly thanks to the clean wooziness of its synths.
There are a few jarring moments – a Martyn remix of electro-pop trio The Detachments is an ill fit, the vocals standing out like a sore thumb – but largely, it’s testament to Deijkers’ way with a slippery beat that this holds together so well.