Martin Nonstatic – Live In Athens

Martin Nonstatic – Live In Athens [Ultimae, 2024-09-05]

In our interview with Cio D’Or for Orb Mag earlier this year, she shared a seemingly simple yet meaningful anecdote: “In 2009, Mike Parker and I performed at a venue in Tokyo which got introduced by a local DJ who was playing ambient music only. I was fascinated by how receptive the Japanese audience was to such deepness and the night pleased me a lot: I followed up very slowly and when the first kicks and hi-hats hit the floor, people totally freaked. For my ears and from my experience in modern dance, such a build-up was far more interesting than when exclusively following a classic four-to-the-floor techno pattern.”

Partly from this experience, Cio D’Or found a way to give life to her music. Instead of building groovy drums and finding sounds to dress them, she started centring her music on cinematic and intriguing ambient sceneries, where drums are added as storytelling characters, in a deeper – and therefore more impactful – marriage between order and disorder.

Of course, she didn’t invent such a creative process, already at work in the psychedelic culture of the sixties and popularised in the eighties by its emerging sub-genres, from shoegazing to trip-hop to dub techno. However, she shares three important common points with Martin Nonstatic. Firstly, both artists are first and foremost “dreamers” and their music is at the service of their dreams. Secondly, the ambient sceneries are central to their art, as developed above. Finally, both share a special connection to the world of silence…

Following a long period of exploration with synths, Martin Nonstatic started releasing music around 2011, and his early works unmistakably showcase his roots in the dub techno genre, with its typical delayed reverbed chords and textured minimalism. Whether it is for an EP, a live act or a DJ mix, dub techno is never far in his productions. Recently, he even unveiled a sound pack of dub techno chords for Lufturm.

However, when Tobie Sobie Miastu asked him to describe his music in a 2014 interview, Martin Nonstatic had difficulties answering. Yet delving deeper into his discography uncovers more shades of chill-out influences, from ambient to trip-hop vibes and electronica, at times carried with Max Cooper-alike syncopated rhythms or tech house grooves, when not embracing melodic techno arpeggios or even incorporating guitar elements. The Dutch artist is therefore not exactly tied to dub techno; instead, the myriad of subgenres he chooses to involve facilitate the expression of his dreamlike nature, which he confessed to having in a more recent interview on radiOzora. 

In short, but with a deep meaning, being a profound dreamer, Martin Nonstatic is a high representative of dreamy music, in many of its variations…

In a 2015 interview for XLR Events, Cio D’Or confessed: “I find poetry and inspirations everywhere, particularly in silences…” 

This is precisely during silent moments that she feels at peace contemplating her surroundings, and finding inspiration from what she sees outside, such as from a tree that lacks water. She then conceptualises her observations and/or thoughts artistically.

In his interview on radioOzora, Martin Nonstatic evoked a different yet also meaningful approach to silence. When he moved from Germany to Austria, from a dynamic city to a peaceful one, where time slows down and “nature calls to meet”, the Dutch artist found in silence a way to escape from the harsh reality. After a quick participation in a VA from Ultimae, he got invited to produce a full album: “Granite” followed, well-grounded with freer amplitude. It marked the beginning of a solid collaboration with the French label, where Martin Nonstatic grew in musical maturity. It is particularly obvious in Apana EP and all subsequent projects, including in a sick collaboration with a drummer on Sofa Beats.

A high benefit of dreamers is that when they nurture a dream in their mind, their mind becomes “miraculous”. As such, Martin Nonstatic, as he revealed during his 2020 interview on raidOzora, found in his music a means of evading what he perceives as particularly detrimental: the overwhelming influx of information, the intrusive nature of the press and social media, and the societal calamities, including the COVID pandemic. Like many of us, the Dutch artist is looking for peace, both personally and artistically, and his music conveys such positive mantras in a very contagious way.

We are at the core of what ambient music is all about, a “calming sound”, as well-detailed by Ultimae’s co-manager Sandrine Gryson in her 2017 interview for 17408sound: “I would talk about time and space, slow down the rhythm and widen the horizon, I would also talk about a certain way to look at music as something that is part of your environment, look at music as soundscapes, kind of the way Eric Satie first mentioned the term, a music you can hear or listen, at different levels to discover something new each time.” 

Next to this statement, Martin Nonstatic would probably add that ambient music is also somewhat a healthy reaction against the artificial speed of life, or at least an invitation to slow down, take time to contemplate and work on inner peace, as a way to also stimulate the creative mind.

The opposition between quietness and speed is screaming in the present album, although recorded in a live setting, which inherently requires extra grooves.

The event took place in November 2023, during an Ultimae night in Athens, featuring Christian Samsara and label founder Aes Dana. Martin Nonstatic delivered a beautiful live act on the roof stage of Gazarte, which faces the illuminated Acropolis.

In Athens, Gazarte welcomes eclectic talents, from Dee Dee Bridgewater to DJ Krush

Hitting play makes us think of Cio D’Or’s emotion in Japan: we feel the goosebumps from the entry of the first drums, deep and impactful, following the cinematic ambient introduction. The next tracks build a nocturnal symphony, echoing the artistry of another Austrian figure, namely Mozart: the instruments are not merged in one sonic soup, but each of them is valued separately, dialoguing with each other with character in a peaceful scenery.

As part of Ultimae’s “Live” series, the album’s tracks already came out in past releases, which partly explains our emphasis on a career retrospective rather than on a typical album review. However, apart from the higher immersion resulting from the uninterrupted transitions, the new edits brought some freshness to the pieces, as well as different emotions, empowered by an obvious magical connection with the audience. Feel it by yourself in the following sonic ping-pong we leave you with: