Martyn might be the progressive face of dubstep, but he's a traditionalist in one area: mixing. For the 50th entry in Fabric's mix-CD series, the Rotterdam native shunned all laptop DJing temptations and plumped for a relatively old-fashioned live mix.

"If you're a DJ, you should play vinyl or CD or even Serato," he says on the phone from Washington, where he relocated earlier this year. "That still involves some sort of skill. There's DJing as a technical skill and as an artistic skill. I think you should be able to master both."

Fighting words. But then Martyn has never been one for playing to the gallery. While many consider his music borne out of dubstep, he disagrees. Rather, he's never squarely fit into any one sound. "I always thought I was a bit of an outsider," he says. "And that's how I like it to be honest."

An ex-drum & bass producer, Martyn recorded for labels including Marcus Intalex's Revolve:r and Bassbin, but eventually got tired of "music that was too hard, too cheesy-melodic or all about putting in as many elements as possible." Finding refuge in dubstep's spaciousness ("It had more possibilities"), he eventually met another dead-end, so set about joining the dots instead.

With his soft-focus remix of TRG's Broken Heart and earlier tracks like Shadowcasting, along with the likes of Appleblim and 2562, Martyn's helped create the 'dubstepno' hybrid that's proving such an attractive exit for producers out to avoid in-yer-face wobble and looking for something subtler.

But while he hasn't dumped dubstep, he admits that as of late, he's been more preoccupied with straight-up house and techno. With his tastes lying at the centre of all these styles, he's been keeping a watchful eye on what's happening in the UK.

"It's funny because a lot of these new guys don't really have a history in house," he says. "They're young or their history is in dubstep raves. So I think their approach is quite fresh. It makes for an interesting hybrid. Even the tempo is open to discussion nowadays, which is even more interesting.

"There's people doing stuff at 140 and people doing stuff at 130. Then there's that whole LA crew with Flying Lotus which isn't really dubstep but for some reason seems to fit in the same mould, but their tempos are all over the place. So it gets weirder and weirder at the moment."

Like mutual admirers Flying Lotus and Kode 9 who recently picked up his Megadrive Generation for Hyperdub, Martyn has a knack for blurring genre joins on Fabric 50. More artful genre-smoother than smasher, even though the state of UK dance music is in flux, he knows it might still piss off the purists.  

"I do like to play a variety of things but I like to mould it into one sound," he explains. "I like people like Doc Scott who play a lot of new music, but also a couple of classics, and some house or techno that influenced him. You don't know what to expect. It makes it more exciting. If you look at all the different artists on the mix and all the different scenes they represent, it's quite a wide range. For me it makes perfect sense in my head, but I know for other people it might be very strange."

More fool them.

Words: Sunil Chauhan

 

• Martyn
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• Fabric

Related Links:

• Martyn Remix News
• Martyn Mixes Fabric 50 Compilation
• Martyn Reveals Ghost People Tracklisting
• F Interview
• Fabric For Sale

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