Released: 04/09

Martin Lawson Jones, or Martipants, is what a musician should be: an original and passionate artist, expressing himself through the creation of music. What we are given with Good Lads isn’t an album tailored to ‘what we are meant to like’, but a unique blend of samples, soft synthesized melodies and complex driving rhythms with a very personal, non-commercial feel.

Good Lads is an album of two halves, starting with the very elegant and light January 9th and then progressing through to a darker, more rhythmic second section. The listener is taken through a journey of sounds, with Martipants demonstrating the versatility of samples and synthesized music. Whilst this colourful world of sound develops round them, the listener becomes aware of each individual melody, and every metallic sample that enters, plays its piece then exits. Subtly throughout the album he creates an almost sound-track feel, with the audience listening and being able to imagine amazing accompanying images and pictures. Ranging from the natural water samples of Good Lads, the darker, rhythmic vocal samples of Terrahawks and the catchy synthesized riffs of Das Boot, this composition has a certain elegance about it which I am yet to find in other electronica.

With the first album under his belt, what Martipants has achieved with this second album is something truly unusual: an original and unique take on music. Good Lads is a thoroughly absorbing album from start to finish, with Martipants’ unusual style of composition becoming very addictive listening. Composing electronica from a studio in his bedroom, Martipants represents the true creative eccentric in all of us.

www.myspace.com/martipants

Nathan Workman