- Post-pop
- Avant-pop
- Chamber pop
- Electronic music
- Baroque pop
- Alternative pop
- Leftfield pop
- Art pop
- Singer-songwriter
- Electro-acoustic
- Experimental pop
Comment: Mart Avi is a
25-year old musician from Estonia who firstly gained fame in
underground circles by being the singer in post-Madchester/indie
dance/dance rock collectives,
Badass Yuki, and Stones & Holes. However, since then or in
parallel with it he has been doing his solo albums and being a
requested guest artist.
After Hours,
the first of them came out in 2013 in the LP format under the
Estonian imprint Porridge Bullet.
Humanista
followed approximately three years later being one of the best issues
in 2015. By the way, it was
heralded as the best album of the year in 2015 by one of the most
important Estonian music sites, at Eesti Ekspress being
simultaneously the first issue to have won with a Creative Commons licence. In
general, it is a new uptake on the legacy of such artists as Scott
Walker, David Sylvian, Neil Hannon, David Bowie, and Billy Mackenzie.
And those cool whiffs of
trumpet here and there convey courtesy visits to Miles Davis and
other trumpet players. As I
just said it a new uptake on the artists but exploiting their
postures adeptly in the way
to create a brand new state of art. It
was sassy in its eccentricity and dizzy in its elegantly jumpy
madness though thoroughly set out and accomplished. Avi`s 10-notch
brand new one, as the title hints at it, continues to trudge the same
way (it is not surprising at all, isn`t). However, the first
listening round did not convince me it might be because it is
deceitfully more restrained and layers are more buried. By
paraphrasing one of the title of his songs (
Seasons Have Changed), times have changed. The
next rounds proved the issue is a grower and stepwise opener and
Mart Avi is still great to compose outstanding music. In comparison
to
Humanista there is
more melancholy and languidness to be added to the melting pot.
Furthermore, even if dreamy
seeds within the mix seem to be somehow veiled ultimately the result
is even more daydreamy and soulfully
wondrous than ever before. The effect is managed in a deliberate way. But not only in this regard.
Let`s skip on and listen to
Moses
which chimes as a glitched-out chamber and shoegaze blended composition. Secondly it
could freely be denoted as Rogue Wave. It is followed by
Rogue
State and in
fact proves the accuracy of
the previous sense. More
profoundly, it is about an
enchanting state
of mind being surfaced as a static flow to be disturbed and cut-up.
Additionally, some details
within it are magnified and extended. In a nutshell, it is one of the
most outstanding issues in 2016 so far. It
is an example of pre-eminent
(pop) art.