Month: september 2008
THE AESTHETICS OF MELANCHOLY – MEDIENKONVERTER INTERVIEW 2008
MEDIENKONVERTER INTERVIEW
Martin Hall-interview lavet af Daniel Jahn for Medienkonverter den 26. september 2008
Interviewet er lavet i forbindelse med udgivelsen af Catalyst-albummet.
Last year you released ‘Catalogue’, a compilation featuring your previous work on five records and a DVD. Now you’re releasing ‘Catalyst’, a record that portrays a collection of your most important works containing 20 personally selected singles. Both records prove your versatility ranging from post-punk over pop to classic and avant-garde. Although this wide spectrum, at the beginning, is hardly within anyone’s reach, after a few listens to your music a central theme and an unmistakeable personal style seems to crystallize. Is there a connecting link between all your pieces of work
– When I started making music, I was fascinated and very moved by the way music was able to transmit feelings – from the person making the music to the listener receiving it. This is what art is to me: A matter of transmitting energy. Not just from one person to another, but also from one age to another. Music conveys an inner world, gives you access to places in yourself you might never have been before. I’m saying this to stress the fact, that to me this is the great gift of music: Its ability to lift you up, to allow a new sensation, to give entry into a world otherwise clouded and obscured by daily routines.
– By this token I’ve never been too concerned with labelling what I’m doing. Some emotional lifts take place in the vast fields of romanticism, other depend on the acid drops of rock music. I don’t, however, listen very much to pop or rock music anymore, but I’ve got no problems whatsoever with a Phil Spector-like arrangement overflowing with violins and horns. I love the greatness of popular music. I make music according to need. You make use of forms in order to translate an essence. I think people who listen to the music I’m making, appreciate this kind of journeying into the unknown, the fact that most of my records are different. They tune into the principle behind the various expressions.
– To me music is alchemy, something that’s in a constant state of becoming, something that never ends. In this context the ‘Catalogue’ box represents five doors into the same thing – the pop music, the signature songs, the instrumental works, my collaboration with other electronically inclined musicians and an entirely classical section – whereas the new compilation ‘Catalyst’ focuses on the singles I’ve made during the years … the more easily accessible songs you could say. In Denmark a new generation is beginning to listen to my music, and the singles collection might be an easy first step into an increasingly deepening musical experience. A box consisting of five records and a DVD is a bit too much to begin with for the general listener.
Your last record ‘Facsmile’ is one of my favourites. It sounds like coming to a destination after a long journey, being mature, expressive and yet fragile. For me personally, what’s especially impressing is your vocal interpretation, how your voice seems to be like an instrument fitting perfectly in the songs. How is your relation to your own voice?
– First of all, thank you very much for your comments concerning ‘Facsimile’. It’s definitely also one of my own favourite records. I’m very pleased with this record, in the sense that it seemed to capture the essence of my person, at least at the time when I was recording it. In many ways it’s a concentrate of what I’ve been working with ever since the beginning … or at least working towards. It is, as you said, a sort of arrival – or homecoming, all depending on your point of view – after a long journey. “From one to zero in a circle of ten” so to speak. It’s a destilate of a musical journey, the concentrate of a long process.
– In this manner of speaking my voice is an integral part of the process. It’s the media I work with, my given tool. I’ve had a lot of trouble relating to my own voice during the years, but on this record it simply went into the process as one of its natural ingredients. It’s like poetry, you try to express ideas or states of feelings through the words – the same goes with music. Perfection can be terrible. A lot of my records from the mid-80’s suffered from an almost pathological sense of perfection, but as the American writer Sylvia Plath once said: “Perfection is terrible. It cannot have children”. I really like this phrase. Things have to be genuine rather than perfect. I think that’s one of the things that happened on the ‘Facsimile’ album … that I surrendered to the process rather than constantly being subject to the idea of a perfect product.
As well as records with songs you have published instrumental records, soundtracks and collages. Are there any specific criteria to decide if you work with or without vocals or are those decisions intuitive?
– It depends. Sometimes you are approached with a specific request. When I recorded ‘Camille’ (the music I wrote for a Danish theatre production of Alexandre Dumas’ “The Lady of the Camellias”), it was obvious to me that this body of music had to be instrumental. The parts where vocals were needed were performed by the phenomenal mezzo-soprano Andrea Pellegrini, a fantastic singer. In this case, with the theatre play, I embraced someone else’s work, and by that token it had to be voiceless. “Faceless” you could say. Transparent.
– In comparison ‘Facsimile’ was a completely different process. This was a personal expression, a poetic display. A soul diary – a set of intimate journals. ‘Facsimile’ was a tale, something that needed to be told … a poetic expression that needed a voice. The writer’s voice. My voice.
You describe yourself as a romantic artist. Your songs are always expressive, but nevertheless they are no kitschy love songs. They posses a special form of melancholy that is more hopeful than lamenting, a kind of optimistic melancholia. Longing is a repeating constant factor in your lyrics. What does melancholia, what does yearning mean to you? How much do your songs reveal of the person Martin Hall?
– Well, longing reflects a search for completion – the need to be fulfilled. You yearn for that which you have not yet obtained. Longing is what drives all sensible humans. As living beings, we all want to be fulfilled, in one way or another. I think this is quite a beautiful process, not at all a hopeless project. Personally, I’m quite melancholic by nature, but at the same time I’m very defiant: I’m not going to put up with it. I want to see change, I want to see progress.
– The reference to the romantic tradition is also a hint to the zeitgeist of the start-80’s, the period in which I made my artistic debut. In recent years there’s been a lot of talk about the 80’s, but sometimes I get confused about which 80’s we’re referring to – the 1980’ or the 1880’s. There are quite a few parallels: The poetic nerve, the metaphors, the savage seriousness. The romantic tradition wants everything or nothing at all. It places the heart at the centre of existence and demands conviction. It doesn’t want to settle to any kind of mediocrity.
– Anyway, when I refer to the romantic, I refer to this kind of fierce longing – to the marriage between tender longing and bold demand. Personally, I think you’ll find the most fitting image of Martin Hall on records such as ‘Facsimile’ or ‘Camille’. Where the motive somehow stays elusive, where the real agenda seems kind of hidden in the details.
Your lyrics do not only mediate emotionality, but also a particular set of aesthetics. For example, in one of your songs it is said “Ash and lemon water shining on your lips” which is a quite fascinating metaphor that despite tenderness conveys coolness. Do you draw such literary images deliberately or do such lyrics rise from spontaneous moods?
– I don’t think you can distinguish what you’ve become with what you do. I love literature. You’ll probably find reminiscences of a lot of things I read in my lyrics … senses of Marcel Proust, Rainer Maria Rilke and Scott Fitzgerald. Of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Marguerite Duras. These names have inspired me during the years, elevated me, and obviously the shadows of some of these people’s works linger in my writings.
– I used to write very personal, very confronting lyrics, but in this regard I have definitely changed direction over the years. One of the greatest compliments you can get as an artist, I think, is when people find sanctuary in your works – when they find room, space to linger for a while. Imagery creates space and space allows growth. Combined with music you’re able to produce a haven, a sanctuary.
– When art acts as a catalyst – as something that enables other processes to get activated without losing its own momentum – it’s a magnificent thing. From the ‘Catalogue’ display to the ‘Catalyst’ function so to speak … from the external references to the personal experience.
I once read that you have a tense relation to the music business. I can imagine that your intense way of working and your multifarious output is hardly to combine with all those absurdities of the today’s music market. How do you succeed in doing these splits?
– The music industry is a grocery shop, everyone knows that, something that depends on wages and profits. Sometimes the machinery of a major company can be helpful, at other times completely destructive – you have to stay focussed on the project you’re working with. I’m not really into the “labelling thing”, the idea of the mainstream versus the alternative. I think a lot of the distinction being made between the mainstream and the independent scene is an illusion, something necessary to give people a sense of individual identity. So-called “rebellion” is the market economy’s biggest driving factor, so in many ways the term “alternative” has become just another label for selling people new goods. Being in opposition becomes a design-identity that gives the average consumer the feeling of being hip and trendy etc. The show goes on.
– However, if your musical aim is strong, pure, then this will shine though no matter what circumstances you’re operating in. In the end it’s all about control – about personal focus. I want things to work. You do one thing here, another thing there. As an example, during the 90’s I was as an active songwriter for several major artists which enabled me to finance some of my own, much more difficult and non-commercial works later. I financed the writing of my two-volume novel ‘The Last Romantic’, a process that took me almost five years to complete, with the money I had made on writing songs for other people.
– As I’ve already said a few times, it all comes down to staying focused. In the mid-90’s Sony “couldn’t hear the single” when I presented them to the first sketches of one on my most critically acclaimed records ever, ‘Random Hold’ (released in Denmark in 1996, in Germany 1997). I then raised the funds myself and recorded one of my best albums ever.
In your home country, Denmark, you already seem to be some kind of icon who is accepted and respected by mass media as well as by the independent scene. Do you feel honoured in this position, or is this of no importance to you?
– I appreciate the recognition of integrity, but it’s nothing to be thankful about. I do what I do, and the consequences are what they are.
The end of your collection ‘Catalyst’ is the current single ‘Delirious’, a twisting and euphoric pop song. Is this pop-appeal the beginning of a new artistic chapter?
– No, not really. As a matter of fact it might be the end to that particular chapter in my career, the one called “pop music”. I don’t know. The song is a couple of years old, but it just seemed to fit the singles collection. The collaboration with Danish newcomers Marybell Katastrophy also worked out incredibly well, so there it was, a new single – something that my coming album (scheduled for release in February 2009) is completely devoid of.
FLAMMEN & CITRONEN
FLAMMEN & CITRONEN
DVD
SEPTEMBER 2008
METRONOME/UNIVERSAL PICTURES (5704897036733/DDVDSF4174)
Fredag den 28. marts 2008 havde den danske storfilm Flammen & Citronenpremiere, en film hvori Martin Hall debuterede som filmskuespiller. Eposset er instrueret af Ole Christian Madsen og var ved sin udgivelse den dyreste dansksprogede produktion nogensinde med et samlet budget på omkring 50 millioner.
Flammen & Citronen handler om den danske modstandsbevægelses kamp under besættelsen og fortæller den sande historie om de to modstandsfolk, Flammen (Bent Faurschou Hviid) og Citronen (Jørgen Haagen Schmith), der i filmen spilles af hhv. Thure Lindhardt og Mads Mikkelsen.
Martin Halls filmdebut er en kort, nærmest cameo-agtig gæsteoptræden, hvor han spiller rollen som kaptajnløjtnant Østergaard Petersen.
1. Flammen & Citronen (133 min.)
Motion Picture DVD
Metronome/Universal Pictures
Thure Lindhardt
Mads Mikkelsen
Stine Stengade
Peter Mygind
Instruktør: Ole Christian Madsen
Producer: Nimbus Film
Design: Nimbus Film
Foto: Jørgen Johansen
“Drønspændende, underholdende og en fryd for øjet. Niveauer over hvad vi er vant til at se herhjemme. Et must – simpelthen.”
( * * * * * * )
Ekstra Bladet – Henrik Queitsch (marts 2008)
”En kraftpræstation.”
( * * * * )
Politiken – Kim Skotte (marts 2008)
“Spændende, elegant, atmosfærefyldt og kronet af intenst nærvær. En uhyre helstøbt film.”
( * * * * * )
Børsen – Morten Dürr (marts 2008)
“Et knugende og tankevækkende drama, der fænger fra start til slut.”
( * * * * * )
Euroman – Tonny Vorm (april 2008)
Martin Halls filmdebut er en som sagt kort, nærmest cameo-agtig gæsteoptræden, hvor han udfylder rollen som kaptajnløjtnant Østergaard Petersen – en depraveret, nazi-venlig personage med en stærk hang til natlige udskejelser.
Selvom filmens endelige scene blev forkortet betydeligt i forhold til den oprindelige drejebog pga. sin meget blodige karakter, er sekvensen stadig et fornøjeligt syn for Hall-aficionados.
Læg i filmen i øvrigt også mærke til åbningsscenens identifikation af kaptajnløjtnant Østergaard Petersen via hans papirer – et pasbillede der er hentet fra Halls Music Hall-album fra 2003.
Optagelserne til filmen fandt sted i Babelsberg-studierne i Tyskland samt på locations i København og Prag. Flammen & Citronen blev produceret af Lars Bredo Rahbek og Morten Kaufmann for Nimbus Film.
I Danmark solgte filmen i løbet af 2008 673.000 biografbilletter og blev dermed den mest sete biograffilm i Danmark det år. Filmen havde yderligere biografpremiere i 13 lande.
Filmpremiere i marts 2008. Udgivet som dvd i september 2008.
CATALYST (SINGLES 1982–2008)
CATALYST
MARTIN HALL
CD
SEPTEMBER 2008
PANOPTIKON (OPTIK 12)
Som en slags koncentrat af det voluminøse 2007-bokssæt, 5-cd/dvd-udgivelsen Catalogue (Martin Hall 1980–2007), udsendte Panoptikon mandag den 22. september 2008 enkelt-cd’en Catalyst (Singles 1982–2008).
Pladen består af en række Hall-singler, der strækker sig fra de tidlige Ballet Mécanique-dage hele vejen op til den nye 2008-single ”Delirious”, som den danske gruppe Marybell Katastrophy producerede.
1. Intellectual Self-Mutilation (3:13)
2. Free-Force Structure (Edit) (6:11)
3. Warfare (Edit) (4:09)
4. Treatment (Edit) (5:25)
5. Showdown (Edit) (4:08)
6. Crush (Edit) (3:43)
7. Beat of the Drum (Edit) (4:00)
8. Surreal Thing (4:45)
9. Prime Material (3:25)
10. Cradlemoon (Edit) (4:22)
11. Another Heart Laid Bare (Edit) (3:46)
12. Love in Vein (4:19)
13. Just a Feeling (4:05)
14. Burning Sugar (Edit) (3:22)
15. My Argentine Rose (1:52)
16. Minor Frame (2:54)
17. Roseland (4:32)
18. Damage Control (6:08)
19. Tout le Monde (2008) (1:19)
20. Delirious (3:56)
INTELLECTUAL SELF-MUTILATION
All their care in me mentioned briefly in a move
Selfish bourgeois as intellectual self-mutilation
Generosity of shared evil
Some denied the possibilities
And the icecold waters spread without intention then
Fattish colourless seemed eternal
Gloriless emotions strangled me
Pulse with mercy gave me light to see
Individual only as a consequence
From bleeding of brotherhood
I seek never seen
I seek never been
Pretentious as soul
Pretentious as honesty
From the journey that killed useless hate
I was born again to share the strength
And for those who try to wash their hands in suffering
I will be there soon but not already
I do not regret what I fought for
Only all the weapons I fought with
I refuse to feel the pain from all my former friends
Those who lived by form and then denied it
Nature
Something has begun to open
Beauty cuts thought
FREE-FORCE STRUCTURE
Forever hidden in the profile
The either-or behind the both-and
Transcend and ascend in the moment that frees
All loving fucked up in tension
Without shadow and without motion
A word like heart
A word like fire
I believe with my body
Believe with my soul
Believe in the eyes before me
Approach and regain
Life repressed to myth
Changing once again
Words sealed with a kiss
Cancel all the pain in these fantasies of realities
Let the fragments shine
Feel me deep within
Let the nearness bind
Feel me skin to skin
Let your flesh and mind fuse to the same thing
Rising from decline
Get up
Reach out
Confront
Break through
Re-set reality
Programme your love
All must pass but presence remains
The basic concepts, the further lies
Of the rituals built on your ism of truth
In this chain reaction set-out
We’re born alone but still I need you
So please don’t hide in self-hate and compromises
Between a desire to be free
And passion made of confinement
WARFARE
In this media of mental translation
In this handicap of alienation
I need more than your model of motion
Than aesthetics of broken hearts
Here we are again
Feeling just the same
In these separate hells
Every word’s been said
Every lie’s been fed
To define ourselves
While your balance is kept intellectual
You’re emotionally ineffectual
A hysteria so perfectly tragic
So unreachable near
I’ve just had enough of neurotic love
Of this culturecide
I don’t need your shit
It just makes me sick
Look into my eyes
‘Cause this is the face
This is the race
TREATMENT
Treat me hard
Treat me with heart
Show me no mercy
Show me no sign of weakness
Retreat me right
Remain in light
Through every night and day
So cruelly
I know you’ll be my destiny
In all
Surrender completely
Fade into me
I need you this close
I want you to be
The purpose itself
To every extent
In method and need
Beginning and end
Treat me right
Treat me with right
Show me no mercy
Show me no sign of weakness
In cover of all of your love
I’ll make this dream come through
In every trace of every face
I feel a stream of you
So tender we treat each other with fear
The root of our need will constantly tear
Our fiction apart
Revealing the bone
Behind walls of love
We’re still all alone
Be my Judas
Be my destiny
I’ll forgive you in eternity
Be my Jesus
Be my sacrifice
I’ll betray you with a kiss of ice
SHOWDOWN
As everything changes me
Exploding in start on start
It shines on so hard through you
A crystal of flesh and blood
In your face
In your eyes
In the savagery of
How we love
How we die
A fever is burning
Releasing my spirit
In these European schemes
Imprisoned in mind of stone
A system so centralized
Conceptual humanity
Through obsession and love
Through the days and the years
And still burning inside
There’s no turning back now
The circle is broken
Feel the showdown
CRUSH
As you fill me again
I have no further questions
Condemned to be free
As I reach out for you again
Nothing is new
But something has grown
Bigger than both of us
Stronger than memory
And much stronger than defeat
I’m gonna crush the worlds we used to know
A seed is sown
I’m gonna let it grow
I’m quite aware what I’ll be going through
There’s no way back
It all depends on you
My destiny
I’ve seen it in your eyes
A love so deep
A stream that purifies
And in your arms
The nature of all death
Is nothing but a touch of timelessness
I’m gonna crush you with my love
I’m gonna be crushed up in love
BEAT OF THE DRUM
Now one day I woke up to some rules of life
That a serious heart needs a light mind to survive
That if you only hope you won’t get very far
‘Cause dreams call for action
No matter what you want the way is to begin
‘Cause knowing all about it is not the living thing
And those who sit and ask for great things all the time
Well I hope they’ve sorted out the many small things on the line
A focus inside out
The still of the centre
You must live by demand
But also surrender
As the beat of the drum beats the ghosts on the run
So the beat of my heart keeps me wondering
Now it’s been said this world is a stage
Well then if that is true
It’s an unwritten play
That makes being a becoming
It’s so easy seen when it’s someone else
But are you any better when you’re by yourself
‘Cause in this hall of mirrors you’re in a counterpoint
Where it takes one to recognize one
Now there are those who say that life is hard and then you die
Well petty leads to pity if you do not wonder why
‘Cause the way to solve a problem is to get a bigger one
So to those who cry for freedom
Well there’s working to be done
SURREAL THING
River deep
Mountain high
Out of the blue
As pure as the real thing
The state and the feeling
It leaves me no doubt of what needs to be done
A thunder’s been raging
A choice has been taken
To never look back
To be one of the few
While all things must pass
A fire will burn
Purify
Never change
It’s seen in the sky
As there’s so much more to this than meets the eye
It’s something within
The longing inside is the drive that allows
The work to be done
River deep
Mountain high
A shadow inside
In the light of a greatness from which none can hide
Out of the blue
Into the fire
And I’m stronger than ever in my one surrender
A red storm arising
Now I know what I want
And I know how to get it
It’s calling within and without
As pure as the real thing
The state and the feeling
It leaves me no doubt of what needs to be done
A thunder’s been raging
A choice has been taken
To never look back
To be one of the few
I know it
‘Cause I feel it
I don’t need no further proof to believe it
There’s a guiding light
Burning inside out
As pure as the real thing
I return
In the light of the sun
A shadow is cast of a moment in time
Like turns of the tide
In the still of the night it begins
What is is to be
PRIME MATERIAL
Modern life
So-called welfare
It lives inside you like a dream in the night
A sophisticated nightmare
It’s gonna blind you with its sweetest delight
Stimulus governs
Stimulus rules
It governs the trials
It governs the views
Prime material
Transformation of waste
Age of ice
Age of fire
And it’s been later than you think for a while
Living myth
The survivors
An inner freedom’s gonna start with denial
The self-pity ends where reason begins
The theatre stage is rice paper thin
Prime material
Transformation of waste
You’ll know yourself by the resistance
It either breaks you or it makes you stronger
CRADLEMOON
The fire and the water keep mixing in my blood
The sons and the daughters seemed to give it all up
They got too tired of the waiting
Too tired to believe
In the promises that nobody keeps
I’ve seen a generation coming
I’ve seen a generation go
And the more I see, the less I know
I want to go to sleep
I want to drown in the deep of the cradlemoon
I want to touch the sky
I want to lie down and die
In the cradlemoon of the night
So I followed the shadows by the trail of the waste
And it led me into the heart, to the heart of these days
I never wanted to remember
Never wanted to believe
But you don’t ask why when the thunderheart beats
All I wanted was a reason
What I got was so much more
Couldn’t turn my back on the things that I saw
I want to go to sleep
I want to drown in the deep of the cradlemoon
I want to touch the sky
I want to lie down and die
In the cradlemoon of the night
In a world full of stories
There’s a time in the night
When the sky seems to break by the blink of the eye
ANOTHER HEART LAID BARE
Another heart laid bare on the doorstep to my exile
Another pantomime to disbelieve
I see your bended head, always humble in the daylight
Playing the servant’s role to never see
Of all the images that you left for my keeping
The one I like the most is the world outside
I never thought I would but the distance seems so perfect
I can’t deny the fact that I’m pleasantly surprised
Another victim cries, pointing fingers at the heavens
Declaring me the crime of centuries
The traces on my skin, they keep shining in the nighttime
A fingerprint on every memory
LOVE IN VEIN
Heavy as lead in a medicine secret
Turning the sights on a narrow-go-round
Limited mind never looking for answers
Vanishing light never hitting the ground
And the beauty blinds you
And it cools the strain
And it hides inside you
Like a love in vein
Silhouette tear on a pillow of sorrow
Look-a-like pain as a ticket to go
Cities of light for a memory season
Dressing your mind for millennium low
‘Cause the beauty blinds you
And it cools the strain
And it hides inside you
Like a love in vein
JUST A FEELING
Silver lining inside me
You’re adapting my every word
Such an eloquent silence
Feeling hurt?
Still you’re moving so lightly
Like you’re hanging within the air
Seems it’s your way of saying
Couldn’t care
It’s just a feeling
Another feeling on the sky
It’s just a feeling
Another feeling coming down
The silver lining
You’ll see it run into the air
For just a moment
Another line that disappears
Guess it’s all second chances
Getting used to the sights and sounds
With the greatest indifference
Running down
All aesthetic behaviour
Still I’m watching your every move
Give and take of the daylight
For the view
BURNING SUGAR
The memory lines that run down the sky
Running like streams of reason
The story is told in silver and gold
Words never tell the tale
I believe in all that I see
In all that I know
In all that I feel inside me
I know that dreams will come true
If they’re burning
Burning sugar
Burns inside me
Burning sugar
Burning so sweet
The things that I’ve seen
The places I’ve been
Secrets that stay unbroken
The look in your eyes
It’s high as a kite
Cooling my every need
MY ARGENTINE ROSE
She’s a cool breeze of discontent
She’s like a story that never ends
She’s my Argentine rose
She’s such a delicate rose
See the twenties within her eyes
Eternal stardust that never dies
She’s my Argentine rose
She’s such a delicate rose
She’s my melancholic maybe
Come and save me
Come and set me free
MINOR FRAME
Crowded Saturdays
Guest among ghosts
A girl made of shivers
Girls on their own
Rolled down shades
Sweet, harsh sweat
It’s the choked laughter
The unmade bed
All the things you might remember
Things you might forget
Looking young and old
In the same glance
Nervous tenderness
But steady at hand
Curly hair
And vinyl sounds
Guess it’s carved within the faces
Carved and painted down
A cigarette that’s burning
Along the line
I guess that she’s the one you won’t forget
ROSELAND
29 believers in the room next door
Guess the myth didn’t equal the score
While they’re praising the legend
They can’t wait for his fall
Never was enough room for us all
Not enough air to breathe
Or time to leave
Trading in make believe
For the time being
Meet me at Roseland
Meet me at summer’s end
No one will notice
Anywhere that we meet
Promise you’ll be there
Don’t leave me waiting
You’re all I’ve ever known
All I’ll ever know
All the painted faces
Every painted smile
So allergic to all that they hide
Guess I needed the feeling
Every scandalous high
Got accustomed to life on the line
I saw all the stories end
Begin again
But only a single face
Stayed the same
Meet me at Roseland
Meet me at summer’s end
No one will notice
Anywhere that we meet
Promise you’ll be there
Don’t leave me waiting
You’re all I’ve ever known
All I’ll ever know
Wherever you go
Wherever you’ll show
I’ll be waiting for you
DAMAGE CONTROL
She’s got a heart full of crazy people
She’s clearly not amused
Catching colds and missing trains
Is all she seems to do
The tragic bravados
The bourgeois staccato
Wonder why they bother at all
They’re all talking in headlines but dress out of style
“Get a life and then give me a call”
Every ghetto gladiator
Every little Pierrot
Looking like a drag magician in another wasted show
There’s a beggar on each corner
A stench in the air
Life’s a song that’s dedicated to the lovers at Tiananmen Square
Confetti-covered
All animated
Party eyes that never close
A wave of raving faces with sparkling smiles
They look the same wherever she goes
The white shirts and big lips
All drowning in honey
Smacking tongues while they’re shaking their heads
Little socialites with portable roots
In her eyes they’d be better off dead
But the shops and the markets
The wild consumer craze
Seem to bind it all together and somehow make their day
All these harlequin girls with swimming pool eyes
If nothing else matters
They really took advantage of their time
So shit in your hat and place your head on a chair
This journey’s clearly not going anywhere
Turn on the tv
The lie of the land
A string quartet playing in a refugee camp
Start with a kiss and soon you’ll need vaseline
The damage control of any tangerine dream
Play hard to get
You’ll end on the run
‘Cause everyone’s bored with all this soft-porn
TOUT LE MONDE
April 4 turning 9.25
Writing words in the air
Lovers left with a cool rainy day
Places no longer there
Cardboard letters and manners that fail
Paris Odéon girls
Doors are closing
Lights still glowing
With a weak innocence
DELIRIOUS
See the lime green eyes
Every painted smile
It’s the beating heart of the crowd
Like a kite on the sky
It’s the shortest of nights that burn
With the most wonderful flame
In the glittering light
There’s no need to align
We’re just wasting our time
Maybe it’s the lack of reason
Maybe it’s the wasted feelings
Maybe it’s the light that makes me feel
Delirious
See it in the breaking mirrors
Spreading in a thousand shivers
Spreading like a mist within the crowd
It’s delirious
See the starry eyes
Fade away in clouds
See them kiss-and-tell just for you
I’ve been watching the faces
Coming back from the eighties again
They’re all on the line for you
Skrevet om ‘Catalogue’-bokssættet:
“Imponerende bokssæt fra 27 års produktivt og kompromisløst virke: Niveauet er gennemgående meget højt. Hall har ramt hovedet på sømmet i udvælgelsen af de i alt 81 cd-numre og de 15 dvd-optagelser. Blandt højdepunkterne kan nævnes 80’er-elektropopsangene ”Crush” og ”Beat Of The Drum”, der står overraskende stærkt i dag, og de formfuldendte og meget inderlige ballader ”Synthesis” og ”Images In Water” fra henholdsvis 1986 og 1999. Højdepunktet er dog den kammermusikalske cd, hvor Hall virkelig træder i karakter som sanger … et must for fans og stærkt anbefalelsesværdig for begyndere.”
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Gaffa – Ole Rosenstand Svidt (november 2007)
“Den excentriske elegantier fra A-Z: En mammutopsamling … dansk musikhistorie ingen feinschmecker må snyde sig selv for. En sand øreåbner.”
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Citadel – Peter Albrechtsen (november 2007)
“Et storladent bokssæt. Manden, der altid har skubbet fortiden fra sig for at kunne gribe fat i fremtiden, ser tilbage på karrieren.”
MetroXPress – Susan Grønbech Larsen (5. november 2007)
“En imponerende introduktion til en af landets vigtigste og mest produktive sangskrivere … Hans overvældende produktion kan være svær at overskue, men ved at tildele de forskellige genrer hver sin cd, har mesteren samlet og sorteret det bedste fra alle sine verdener. Og hvilke verdener. Martin Halls popmusik er sofistikeret og storladen uden at blive klæbrig, mens nyere ballader som ”Images In The Water” slår de fleste konkurrenter af pinden. Det er svært at pege på andre danske kolleger, der kan samle hele 81 numre uden at træde forkert en eneste gang.”
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Jyllands-Posten – Kasper Schütt-Jensen (12. november 2007)
“Musikalsk selvbiografi: Få musikere har som Martin Hall formået at dække hele det musikalske spektrum fra radiohits til meget svært tilgængelige avantgarde-produktioner … et rigtig godt indblik i den brillante multi-instrumentalists livsværk.”
Where2Go (november 2007)
“Der Output dieses Mannes ist schier unermesslich … Martin Halls Schaffen in fast all seinen Facetten abdeckt.”
Grenzwellen (november 2007)
”Et overvældende bokssæt: Få kan som Martin Hall højtideligholde et stykke musik. Måske nogle gange også mere end det kan bære. Men han havde fra 1985-1989 et enestående godt greb om denne kombination af blank mekanik, funkede synkoper, renskyllede temaer og emotionel overspænding. Kampen om at lade hjertet vinde over hjernen var hans erklærede projekt i den periode. I stedet for sejr til en af siderne holdt de to poler hinanden i skak, og det kom der ikke dårlig musik ud af. Bevægelsen går fra det buldrende sorte og beskidte lydbillede under punken til en brutalt bankende digitalrock. Derefter flader Hall ud i den store altfavnende ballade langt inde på romantikkens terræn. Undervejs udvikler kunstnerens stemme sig fra det skrigende barns til en voksen og følsom vibrerende røst, der forsøger at ramme hjertets uartikulerede tale i sin sangstil, men også stadig har et buespænd smukt og højt som en katedral.”
Weekendavisen – Per Reinholdt Nielsen (23. november 2007)
”Et misforstået geni: Det imponerende, seksdobbelte bokssæt samler op på højdepunkterne af hans særdeles produktive musikalske karriere, som altså indtil videre har strakt sig over 27 år. I den forbindelse har Hall fået masser af medieomtale og anmelderroser, ligesom han har fået, stort set hver eneste gang han har udgivet en cd, en bog eller hvad han nu ellers har haft oppe i de som regel jakkesætklædte ærmer … Højdepunktet er dog den nye cd indspillet med kammerensemble, hvor Hall virkelig træder i karakter som sanger.”
Aarhus Stiftstidende (25. november 2007)
“… de største, enkleste og alligevel mest præcise kærlighedssange, der nogen sinde er skrevet; ja, engang sagde jeg endda til mig selv, efter at have hørt det himmelråbende smukke væv af loops, orgel og cello, at nu kunne jeg roligt tage billetten: Intet ville nogen sinde blive bedre! … Hall er en af de få personer i dansk åndsliv, man af de helt rette grunde kan kalde en legende.”
Geiger (7. januar 2008)
Kun selvstændige bidragsydere er fremhævet her
Ballet Mécanique: Instrumenter
Christian Skeel: Strygerarrangement
Claus Beck-Nielsen Memorial: Kor
Front and Fantasy: Instrumenter
Johnny Stage: Remix
Marcel de Sade: Flygel
Marybell Katastrophy: Instrumenter, kor
Trauma: Instrumenter
Under For: Instrumenter
Winterhill: Remix
’Catalyst’ indeholder indspilninger foretaget i perioden 1982–2008. Derfor henvises der til diskografioversigtens originaludgaver vedr. specifik information omkring de enkelte indspilninger. 2008-remastering ved Johnny Stage.
Design: Kenneth Schultz
Foto: Robin Skjoldborg
Udvalget af numrene på Catalyst er bestemt af, at de enten havde været udgivet på vinyl som 7” eller 12”, som cd- eller promotion-single, b-side, download eller remix. Dette gav et vist kunstnerisk råderum, sådan at eventuelt nye lyttere også kunne danne sig en fornemmelse de mere projektorienterede indspilninger, Martin Hall gennem årene har foretaget eller deltaget i. Alt i alt kom cd’en til at indeholde 20 numre, hvoraf størstedelen er single-edits af de oprindelige indspilninger.
Ud over den nye download-single ”Delirious”, hvor Hall som sagt samarbejder med Marybell Katastrophy, byder albummets andet nyindspillede nummer på endnu en gæst, som Hall på det tidspunkt ikke havde samarbejdet med før. På genindspilningen af ”Tout le Monde” fra Catalogue-bokssættet, hvor Martin Hall akkompagneres af pianisten Marquis Marcel de Sade, gæsteoptræder den navnløse forfatter, instruktør og sanger i Claus Beck-Nielsen Memorial som korist. Nyindspilningen af ”Tout le Monde” udgjorde den digitale b-side på ”Delirious”-singlen og fandt på den måde vej til Catalyst-cd’ens tracklist.
Vedr. de andre samarbejder på albummet: Track 1 er indspillet med Ballet Mécanique, track 2 og 3 med Under For, track 4 med Front and Fantasy, track 12 med den tyske techno-gruppe Trauma, track 15 med Christian Skeel og track 18 med remix-gruppen Winterhill. Musikken på track 4 er skrevet sammen med Martin Krogh, på track 12 i sammen med Trauma og på track 15 sammen med Christian Skeel.
Producer-credits: Track 7 og 8 er co-produceret af Flemming Nygaard, track 10, 11, 13 og 14 af Thomas Li og track 19 af Johnny Stage. Track 12 produceret af Trauma, track 15 af Christian Skeel, track 16 og 17 af Johnny Stage, track 18 af Winterhill og track 20 af Marybell Katastrophy (strygerarrangement skrevet af Martin Hall).