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A BRIEF SUMMARY

MARTIN HALL
LP/CD
APRIL 2013
PANOPTIKON (OPTIK 40)

Phasewide, Exit Signs er en musikalsk logbog, hvor Martin Hall arbejder sammen med flere udenlandske samarbejdspartnere, heriblandt den græsk-engelske pianist Othon Mataragas (bedst kendt for sit arbejde med navne som Marc Almond, Current 93 og Peter Christopherson fra Coil og Throbbing Gristle).

Pladen blev et halvt år efter dens danske udgivelse også udsendt i Tyskland, Østrig og Schweiz.

1. Emblematic (2:23)2. Muted Cries (4:18)3. L (1:49)4. Tin Music (6:55)5. Meth (8:29)6. Retrograde (3:44)7. Forgetting the Details (5:11)8. Red Lips, Marble Eyes (4:29)9. Site Specific (2:36)10. Phasewide (5:45)

EMBLEMATIC

I felt a sigh pass your lips
I saw the weight on your eyelids
Yet there you swagger and there you go
The mise-en-scène of your mercy drome

Too many images at play
Too many faces in a day’s work
Your sweet incentive, it’s so relentless
My grief’s been waiting for this day

No easy answers, only hard choices
I guess we came to the end of the road
Your random gender, my desolate needs
The splintered voices of lost beliefs

Trading commodities with no fixed presets
No traces left of a long gone starlet
Pornographers and secondhand consumer rights
All sons and lovers of 70’s delight

MUTED CRIES

The clouds in her eyes
A whispering need
Shedding her light all over me

Try recall the cities in twilight
The clubbing
The cigarette sky
As you notice the silence
The carvings
The memory lines
The muted cries

A jaded desire
A comforting need
Walls coming down
On callous beliefs

Try recall the cities in twilight
The clubbing
The cigarette sky
As you notice the silence
The carvings
The memory lines
The muted cries

TIN MUSIC

Tin music
Seeping out into the street
Jasmine scented, stagnant air
Hatching any need
While the summer lingers on you tell the tale

Still hiding
Just a face within the crowd
Running ‘round
Falling down
Guess it’s all the same
So embarrassed by the loss of all this weight

The intimacy of casual ease
It’s no relief

METH

Wide eyes, swollen lips
She examines herself like she’s about to fade
Into air
Into all she disbelieves
Skin engraved with burns
Like a jaded belief about to disappear
There’s no need
To enact this line of ways

Trace the fading needs
The ebbing desirability
You’re turning away
Still hiding your face
Don’t you know your name?
Through all of these years it stayed the same
It’s always been you
I just couldn’t choose

Lines
She wets her lips
Leaning back with her arms wrapped around her knees
To adjust
To recalibrate the need
Words in pantomime
Eyes like shimmering marble
Pressure veiled by grace
Once again
Seems to settle for reserves

Don’t you feel the weight?
The slight hesitation, the delay
Aesthetic beliefs
Won’t cover this need
Don’t you know your name?
Through all of these years it stayed the same
Whatever I do
It’s always been you

Try to hold back the dawn
Try to hold back the morning
Hold back the night
If just for a while

RETROGRADE

Still lying wide awake
Imagining your face
A cool, white offering
Caught in this retrograde

Lips drawn and quivering
Veins faintly shimmering
All pierrots in rags
Spastics and acrobats
Discredit every move
Condolences to prove
The friction and the heat
Your genuine belief

A gravitational pull that never seems to decrease

FORGETTING THE DETAILS

Cheekbones made of light
Somewhere it’s morning
The languid grey of night
Leaving the fragrance of a cry

Guess you’re sliding back into your life
The pressure on your eyelids
Patterns of waiting
Of suffocating
Replaying the same scene
Recalling the same dream

Cover any feeling
Cover any reason now
You’re breathing the same air
The same hysteria
Like a mirrorball that shines
Just another flash of light
Deteriorating
Forgetting the details
Rewriting the scene in your mind

The exit signs of light
She’s lying beside me
She’s hidden in a sigh
In the changes of a room

Guess she’s sliding back into her life
The pressure on her eyelids
The time that it’s taking
Before she wakens
It feels like a lifetime
A memory rewind

RED LIPS, MARBLE EYES

Lights from cars slowly driving by
Her eyes reflecting a desert sky
Lover’s rental
Sentimental child
Guess you’re hiding
Down along the line
Dresses in fields
Shirts on the sea

Imagine yourself then
Imagining yourself now
Red lips and marble eyes
Bourgeois bohemia high

They say nobility grows out of contained emotion
Well she feels a bit bloated right now
Skin like alabaster
Swollen like a plaster
I guess she’d rather look like somebody else
It’s like a seal
A heap of needs

Imagine yourself then
Imagining yourself now
Another poster girl
Fake fur and high-heel spurs

All of these sons of Cain and girls with wings
Still staring at the ceiling
The illegitimate desires never fade

SITE SPECIFIC

Incestuous needs
A tender display on your pillow
Diverging beliefs
Written all over your face
The look in your eyes
A desolate kingdom of reason
The crown that you hide
Revealing a pagan belief

Enemy
Find the key
Anomaly

PHASEWIDE

Look at us now
This is what we’ve become
She can’t recognize anyone
Her arms ‘round her knees
Her eyes closed to see

Don’t expect too much
This is what we’ve got
Let’s just lie here
Watch the lights appear

Cosmetic disapproval
Descending like snow
The residue of daylight
Flickers in the street
Flickers in the heat

Don’t expect too much
This is all we’ve got
Let’s just lie here
Watch the lights appear

”Dragende skønhed i musikkens knugende ensomhed og fintmærkende melankolske desperation, der leger gemmeleg mellem kompositionsmusik og popballader. ”Tin Music” er et tusmørkekornet ambient-tableau langt inde i drømmeland, hvor en ravn nidstirrer Edgar Allan Poe, I ”Red Lips, Marble Eyes” dirigerer Hall noget, der lyder som et jazzet New Orleans-begravelsesoptog på syre. Subtilt.”
( * * * * )
Jyllands-Posten – Anders Houmøller (27. marts 2013)

”På det første soloudspil fra Martin Hall i syv år kommer vi vidt omkring på verdenskortet. I den over 30-årige karriere har den excentriske kunstner ligeledes løftet enhver sten genremæssigt. Lige fra post-punk over avantgarde-pop til klassisk kammermusik. Nytænkning og eksperimenter er blevet undfanget på forbløffende vis. Således er det også med Phasewide, Exit Signs … et gennemmusikalsk roadtrip med den altid så omskiftelige hr. Hall i foruroligende god form.”
( * * * * * )
Gaffa – Finn P. Madsen (31. marts 2013)

”Manden er en sand multikunstner. Og hans helt nye soloskive hører til slagsen, der bliver ved med at give. På Phasewide, Exit Signs kommer Hall hele vejen rundt – fra storslået pop, over vibrerende og krystalagtig ambient a la Brian Eno, til det rene pop-hysteri … på albummet her er det en fornøjelse at følge med.”
( * * * * * )
BT – Henning Høeg (1. april 2013)

”Åndeløst smukt: Phasewide, Exit Signs er et album, hvor Hall atter finder ind til grundkernen af det han gør allerbedst. Åndeløst smukke musikalske øjeblikke, hvor stilheden også får lov at fylde – der er, med andre ord som i velskrevet lyrik, stoflighed mellem linjerne – og det er en fornøjelse, atter at konstatere, at der ikke findes mange andre kunstnere som Martin Hall. En kunstner der vedholdende er sin egen og som evner at skabe smukke, æstetiske musikalske øjeblikke der bliver siddende tyste, men larmende i bevidstheden.”
( * * * * * )
Lydtapet – Peter Krogh (3. april 2013)

Phasewide, Exit Signs er en tør hvid rosenknop med minimalistisk klaver, sarte strygere og båndsløjfer med spøgelseskolde vindpust i en elegi for den falmende eros. Med vokal som papirtynd marmor synger Martin Hall med pertentlig patos om kindben, kønsidentitet og det forbudte begær, som aldrig blegner. Smukt og unikt.”
Politiken – Kim Skotte (3. april 2013)

”Et appetitvækkende og afdæmpet værk i luksusklassen: Fornemmelsen af over- og underbelyste lydbilleder, der smelter sammen, stråler uovertruffent i stille øjeblikke i ”Site Specific”, ”Meth og ”Retrograde”. At lytte til Phasewide, Exit Signs er i det hele taget lutter betagende 45 minutter, på linje med at iagttage de levende mønstre som store stæreflokke kan danne på en tusmørkehimmel. Albummets punktum, ”Phasewide”, er i noget af det smukkeste længe fra Halls hånd.”
( * * * * * )
Aarhus Stiftstidende – Thomas Nygaard (7. april 2013)

”Pladen er temmelig smuk. Dens mestendels klaverdrevne numre er en række fængslende og let klaustrofobiske rum, såsom ”Tin Music”, der har grandiositet og uhygge som hos Scott Walker. ”Muted Cries” lader tangenter og klokkespil dryppe langsomt som kinesisk vandtortur, og ”L” er en knapt hørbar og halvglemt drøm … Måske på grund af pladens uafgjorte og ekstremt nærværende karakter går det hele i spænd. Hall skriver smukke kærlighedshymner, især til dem, som er i færd med at dø langsomt. Kroppen besynges, men som alabasterhud, marmor, dødsmasker og autistisk berøringsskyhed. Det er ganske vist en del af legen, at vi skal være bekymrede for Halls helbred, men det er ærlig talt foruroligende.”
Information – Anna Ullman (8. april 2013)

”The song “Meth” is a true musical pearl, lasting more than eight minutes. The delicacy and subtlety in the way the pianist Henriette Groth plays is impressive – alongside a voice that sings with incredible sensitivity and reaches the boundaries of vocalism. Hall is in great shape, something we bear witness to on “Meth” – a work of such high quality that even David Bowie is not worthy of the title … One thing is certain: A few days ago one of the most important records of 2013 appeared. Outstanding.”
( * * * * * )
Nowamuzyka – Łukasz Komła (15. april 2013)

Phasewide, Exit Signs er en kompleks størrelse, der afsøger grænselandet mellem avantgarde, moderne kompositionsmusik og pop med inspiration fra kabaret, lo-fi og skrammeljazz. Selvom det lyder som en voldsom mikstur, glider den faktisk overraskende let ned. Alt synes nemlig at være nøje afvejet – uden at være kalkulerende. Med Halls eminente og teatralske vokal og et forsigtigt piano som omdrejningspunkt vokser sangene frem som iskrystaller – smukke, unikke, men også umulige at fastholde, idet musikken i al sin skrøbelighed konstant truer med at gå i opløsning. Det skitsepræg, der findes på mange af numrene, fungerer utroligt godt, for det sikrer nærvær og musikalsk renhed … At lytte til Phasewide, Exit Signs er slet og ret en æstetisk oplevelse, der vidner om en musiker, som efter en mere end 30 år lang karriere stadig besidder et kreativt drive og en originalitet, som kun de færreste i branchen kan prale med.”
( * * * * * )
Undertoner – Thor Penthin Grumløse (1. maj 2013)

”It’s with growing enthusiasm that I have informed myself of the previously unknown to me (unfortunately) Martin Hall since his latest solo album Phasewide, Exit Signs fell into the hands … and surprised me very positively. His introvert and at the same time atmospheric ways of working in the areas between ambient, art rock, sophisticated pop and avant-garde as well as neo-classical excursions only add to his sparsely arranged songs and make them even more impressive this way … Anyone into musicians and projects like David Sylvian, Peter Hammill (in his restrained songs), Blackfield, Tim Bowness and Scott Walker will not be disappointed by this disc.”
( 11 / 15 )
Baby Blaue – Siggy Zielinski (23. august 2013)

”The fame of the eclectic and talented artist Martin Hall has recently been increased by his commitment to more classical and symphonic work and has yielded great feedback at national and international level. On his new solo release he mainly performs in the role of the singer and leaves the task of the instrumental parts to an abundance of sublime collaborators. Masterly recorded in various cities around the world and in many different situations the album lives particularly through its passion and its showers of excellent vocals … Yet another proof of the formal perfection of the songwriting of an artist who, in addition to the unquestionable practical skills, can guarantee a level of writing that only the best can achieve: To bow before such an artist is a duty, to enjoy his art a pleasure not to be denied.”
( 8 / 10 )
Darkroom Magazine – Roberto Alessandro Filippozzi (14. september 2013)

“Martin Hall returns … ready to blow away your senses: The modern classical music from Denmark by Martin Hall can be hard to describe. The new solo album by the versatile artist proves that once again. It mixes neo-classical moments with electronic experiments, ambient and atmospheric passages and clear, intoxicating singing – rocking, soulful and inspiring … Phasewide, Exit Signs includes an enormous range of styles and contributions. Be sure to check it out.”
Orkus Magazine – Manuela Ausserhofer (25. september 2013)

“A quiet, thoughtful and spherical album.”
( 7 / 10 )
Der Hörspiegel – Michael Brinkschulte (29. september 2013)

“Impressive: Phasewide, Exit Signs is an album that has matured within seven years and is a testament to creativity and sovereignty. And even though the album might seem reserved and intimate, it allows deep insights into what a brilliant artist Martin Hall is.”
Alternativ Musik – Tristan Osterfeld (1. oktober 2013)

“A rousing album.”
Music Scan – Daniel A. Rabl (3. oktober 2013)

“Dark and hypnotic: This is not music for the impatient, for listeners to whom music has to offer stable, attention-seeking attractions to please. Hall understands the award of forging strong tension, so when climax and resolution is expected, he remains calmly positioned and lets his music disappear, fade, until it ends somewhere in the void. You want to let yourself fall into this velvety bed of gentle sounds and brooding words only to find that there is no pliable mattress to catch you. Instead, there lurks something else – something bottomless. Art itself perhaps?”
( 12 / 15 )
Musik Reviews – Jochen König (17. oktober 2013)

“Danish artist Martin Hall strikes back with his first new solo-album in seven years. Conclusion: A poignant, but obscure experimental album that comes in a kind of cabaret format making it more accessible. Best songs: “Meth”, “Tin Music”, “Site Specific”.”
( 6 / 7 )
Side-Line Music Magazine – D.P. (17. december 2013)

Martin Hall: Vokal, dobro, guitar, bånd og keyboards
Othon Mataragas: Piano
Linus Carlsen: Piano
Johnny Stage: Guitar, mandolin, klokkespil og ringmodulator
Henriette Groth: Flygel
Ida Bach Jensen: Kontrabas
Eskild Winding: Harmonium
Peter Marott : Trompet
Mads Mathias (altsaxofon
Vincent Nilsson: Trombone)
Jakob Munck: Sousaphone
Esben Duus: Llilletromme og perkussion
Søren “Blackfoot” Frost: Stortromme og perkussion
Christian Skeel: Flygel, strygearrangementer
The Vista Dome Ensemble: Orkester
Karoliina Koivisto: Soloviolin
Cathérine: Speak
Nele Devillé: Televox

Design: Kenneth Schultz
Foto: Territorium

Phasewide, Exit Signs er indspillet i en række forskellige storbyer (København, Montreal, London og Bruxelles). Pladen er præget af en tilbagevendende fornemmelse af rodløshed, hvilket understreges af den stedvist nærmest skitseagtige produktion, hvor indspilningsmetoderne bl.a. indebærer brugen af diktafoner og kassettebåndoptagere (en enkelt vokalindspilning er foretaget på et hotelværelse i Białystok i Polen). Selvom udgivelsen både musikalsk og tekstmæssigt bærer præg af en vis isolation, har de forskellige steder naturligvis sat deres tydelige præg på værkets endelige form.

Martin Hall gav ved udgivelsen ingen danske interviews, men skrev følgende noter om hver sang til Gaffa. Du kan også læse et modelleret uddrag af en samtale mellem Hall og billedkunstneren Christian Skeel:

I oktober 2013 blev albummet udgivet i Tyskland, Østrig og Schweiz, hvor det ligesom i Danmark blev modtaget meget positivt af både presse og brugere. I forbindelse med den europæiske lancering gav Hall bl.a. et interview til det store tyske musikmagasin Orkus Magazine, hvor han var en af oktobernummerets hovedfeatures. Du kan læse den engelske oversættelse af interviewet her.

I november blev Martin Hall indstillet til to af årets GAFFA-priser (i kategorierne “årets danske album” og “årets danske mandlige kunstner”). Yderligere kårede det polske site Nowamuzyka i december Phasewide, Exit Signs som årets album.

“Et gennemmusikalsk roadtrip med den altid så omskiftelige hr. Hall i foruroligende god form.”
( * * * * * )
Gaffa

”Dragende skønhed og fintmærkende melankolsk desperation.”
( * * * * )
Jyllands-Posten

“At lytte til Phasewide, Exit Signs er slet og ret en æstetisk oplevelse.”
( * * * * * )
Undertoner

”Åndeløst smukt: Det er en fornøjelse atter at konstatere, at der ikke findes mange andre kunstnere som Martin Hall.”
( * * * * * )
Lydtapet

”Lutter betagende 45 minutter. Noget af det smukkeste længe fra Halls hånd.”
( * * * * * )
Aarhus Stiftstidende

“Elegi for eros: Smukt og unikt.”
Politiken

“Ekstremt nærværende.”
Information

”På albummet her er det en fornøjelse at følge med.”
( * * * * * )
BT

“One of the most important records of 2013. Outstanding.”
( * * * * * )
Nowamuzyka

“Intoxicating.”
Orkus Magazine