10 May 2012 — Henning Lahmann
Co-premiere with Ad Hoc
Let’s be honest: when it comes to all things "new age," you’re probably either a believer, or you're not. And no matter what we say about the latest tape by Antwerp’s Lieven Martens, aka
Dolphins Into the Future, it’s not gonna change your mind. A Star Maker, Strange Dreams, and Clairvoyance is the loop artist’s second release under his principal guise this year, following last month’s Canto Arquipélago on
Underwater Peoples. That LP was dedicated to the Portuguese archipelago of the Azores, allegedly home to Martens’ “Cetacean Nation Studios,” where he creates most of his work.
A Star Maker takes up the concept of Canto Arquipélago, opening with the sort of seagull and lapping water sounds that defined the LP. Overall, however, it rides less on nature-worshipping ambience than its predecessor, and is more sparsely instrumented. The 18 minutes of side A, up for streaming below, are loosely divided into three individual tracks: “The moon shone mildly over the hills, prompting strange dreams in all creatures (a symbolic lucid poem, echoed by the night bird arriving from the faraway coast of chorals)," "Olaf Stapledon’s Star Maker (here’s to you, dear Olaf!)," and a reprise of “The moon….”
The title of the first track basically says it all: after the oceanic sounds have decayed, we hear the slightly muffled and distant voice of a male singer. He interprets said poem for about six minutes, subtly supported by chimes and the occasional cries of tropical birds. The second track, loosely textured and composed mainly of shimmering, chirping noises, is of course a tribute to the principal work of British science fiction author
Olaf Stapledon, whose 1937 Star Maker novel revolving around the “progressive unity within and between different civilizations.” This theme that may very well reflect Martens’ fictional existence as the spiritual ambassador of a future, truly liberated life in the oceans, which brings us back to what I said at the outset.
A Star Maker, Strange Dreams, and Clairvoyance is out on
NNA Tapes.
