MARTENS MOANA, LIEVEN - Idylls

Since Lieven Martens Moanas(Dolphins Into The Future) last lp, the massively\r\noverlooked Music from the Guardhouse", our composer has moved from the\r\nislands of Okinawa to the Swampland of Mexico City to the Portuguese\r\ncountryside, running his Private Press, and composing music for ensemble and\r\ncommercials. This very pluralistic life-style and commitment has led us to his first\r\nfull length record in three years: "Idylls". Presented as a 12 page book with an LP\r\ndisc, the listener first hears concentrated and intentional sound-prose poems of\r\nthe life of Robert Louis Stevenson as Martens attempts to "see through the eyes\r\nof RLS". Because of Martens ability to poetically reflect Stevens obsessions, we\r\ncan hear field recordings, not just as documents, but as compositions and\r\nimaginative story-boards of a poets journals in the locales of Polynesia. As we flip\r\nsides we enter into the colorful and active aspect of Martens palate. Flowing from\r\nactive electronically treated thumb piano to tranquil serene alien piano, growing\r\ntowards a rumbling volcano and settling into archaic Goldberg Variations by Mia\r\nPrce of Miaux, the listener is now startled by Captain Moanas refusal for his\r\nmusic to be pure inspired decoration, but instead a world of prose and storytelling.\r\nBy now, we ask ourselves what has changed in the music of Lieven\r\nMartens Moana? Its is for certain on "Idylls", that with a Polynesian Fascination\r\nseemingly unchanged, the intellectual palate has grown so much, that what we\r\nhave in front of us, are wildly colorful and intellectual compositions that seem to\r\nhave arrived from a literary mode, and grown into pieces that have an illusively\r\nromantic allure. The uniqueness of "Idylls" rests upon the artists willingness to\r\narrive at strange and difficult compositions by way of natural story-telling and\r\ninspired readings; Martens further exacts his process, away from just\r\nappreciating Polynesia, and into the act, that Gaugain and Stevenson might have\r\nenjoyed, of symbiotic immersion. We can for certain hear from the Captain\r\nhimself:\r\n

\r\n"Being("Idylls") a portrait, an ethnographic study, an exotic illustration and a ritual. The latter\r\nused in the most mundane sense ever, since I_¢‚Ǩ‚Ѣd like to stay far away from a sensational\r\nbubblegum approach to (religious) ethnography, to the copying of ethnic behaviour, or to\r\napproaching it as something odd or weird. These behaviourisms unavoidably invoke the end of\r\nall rituals, thus making the world a duller place. As being interested in the exotic, (c.q. the\r\nexotist), an act under constant scrutiny, it is a duty to observe and sustain, to withdraw and\r\nrefrain._¢‚Ǩ¬ù\r\n

\r\nPacific City Sound VIsions is extremely stoked to present the new works by\r\nLieven Martens Moana, in the year 2017, as we continue to grow and expand with\r\nan artist revelling in pushing his initially beautiful instincts to a point where they\r\nbegin to be outright living intellectual endeavors." -Spencer Clark, Pacific City Antwerp, Belgium. Limited to 500 copies.\r\n