Feathering the Nest with Justin Martin
Written By: jimmy coultas
Justin
Martin is part of the rare breed. Whilst plenty of DJs slaver to trends,
tailoring their music towards whatever is cool or flavour of the month, Justin,
much like his Dirtybird brethren Claude vonStroke, just runs with his own views
and beliefs. It means he’s created a signature sound which strives to inject
some fun into dance music as well as pushing forward creatively, crafting
mesmerizingly constructed hypnotic grooves and jacking beats which
veers between the melodic and the deeper shades of house music.
With
Justin due to drop the bomb on Carlisle on Saturday 25th February at
Uber, Jimmy Coultas caught up with the San Fran native to chew the fat over his
new album, his love of the Soul Clap sound and the pride he felt when Jamie XX
utilised his Marshall Jefferson remix from 2008 on his classic Essential Mix
last year.
Hi Justin. Tell us
currently what is dominating your immediate schedule... Well,
I just completed working on what is by far my biggest endeavour to date- my
debut album “Ghettos & Gardens”- coming out on Dirtybird in the Spring. Making
an artist album had always been an elusive dream for me and am happy to say
that I finally conquered that challenge and accomplished it! Now that this
project is wrapped up I am back on the road touring and using my spare time to
do some collaborations with some really exciting artists. Currently I’m staying
in Bristol at Eats Everything’s place for the week and we’ve been working on
some new jams.
You’ve always
demonstrated a sense of fun with your productions and djing sets. How crucial
is this within dance music and do you think sometimes people get too serious
about what is, essentially, a form of escapism? I
don’t know if it is necessarily crucial; not everyone has a sense of humour and
some people like their music to be serious. However, that being said, I
consider myself a fun guy who likes to have fun, and I recognize that when
people come out to a Dirtybird show they are usually aiming to have a fun time
as well, so I always do my best to put a smile on dancing people’s faces. Music
doesn’t always have to be silly or humorous to accomplish that either, there is
a time and place for everything.
Fun and vocals are du
rigour in dance music again; hence the sounds of the Visionquest guys, Jamie
Jones and Soul Clap being quite pre-dominant across the globe’s dancefloors.
Are you glad it’s turned this way again? YES!
I love to hear cool music coming out! And I love to see people taking chances
rather than recycling the same sound that other people have done again and
again. The Soul Clap guys are very inspiring to me, they are the classic
example of two guys who stuck to their guns and did something different no
matter what people said. I just heard their new album and its awesome, it
sounds like nothing else out there and that is a hard task to accomplish in
this day and age. The PillowTalk guys are another group that has accomplished
this. I will always commend creativity.
What artists still to
this day inspire you and challenge your ideas on music?
I
am always trying to find new sources of inspiration, so I listen to a LOT of
different types of music. But within dance music I have always been inspired by
my friends in the Dirtybird crew. I love what artists like Soul Clap,
PillowTalk, and Tanner Ross have accomplished in showing that music doesn’t
have to be “banging” to evoke powerful emotions on the dance floor. I am also a
huge fan of Eats Everything, Catz n Dogz and Maceo Plex/ Maetrik. My goal has
always been to make (and find) music that can rumble sound systems but you can
still listen to at home on a rainy day, and these guys have all accomplished
that to the fullest degree.
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