photo by Alex Jackson
“Viva Moon Vegas,” the captivating new single from eclectic A Capella soloist MARTIN HOWTH, is now streaming ahead of the artist’s Distant Dissonance album, nearing April release on Nefarious Industries.
MARTIN HOWTH is the solo looping project of jazz vocalist Audra Mariel based in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey. The music has been described as ethereal, even meditative, but also features catchy hooks and thoughtful lyrics. Using a loop station housed in a signature green suitcase, MARTIN HOWTH loops and layers vocals to weave harmonic and lyrical tapestries. All loops are generated live without the use of pre-recorded tracks nor digital effects, other than the looping effect itself; varied sound is achieved solely through using and exploring the voice as an instrument. Surrounded by several singles and collaborations, MARTIN HOWTH’s The Wayward Warbler debut EP was released in 2018, and now the expansive debut full-length Distant Dissonance arrives.
A collection of live takes recorded in various historic spaces, each song on Distant Dissonance was recorded in a different New Jersey location on either the Georgian Court University campus (the former Gould Estate) in Lakewood, or in the Historic Strauss Mansion Museum in Atlantic Highlands. Because MARTIN HOWTH is a project where vocals are always looped live in performance, recording live takes in unique spaces were an interesting way to create a record with the intent to achieve an authenticity that might be lost on a tracked studio recording.
Distant Dissonance was recorded by MARTIN HOWTH and Alex Jackson and mixed and mastered by Michael Flannery (Jumping Giant), and the cover art features a collage by Corrine Henn with additional artwork by Daimon Santamaria. While difficult to pinpoint its exact genre or style, fans of Björk, Fiona Apple, Tune Yards, Dirty Projectors, Alous Harding, and The Dead Singer should not miss out on this album.
MARTIN HOWTH reveals of the new single, “‘Viva Moon Vegas’ tells an imagined sort of folk tale about the origins of moonlight. It alludes to the notion of soulmates, two parts of a whole, the way Aristophanes depicted the origins of love at Plato’s Symposium. In his depiction, humans, formerly double beings, brazen in their power, were severed in two by the gods to limit this power and are now doomed to suffer and to roam the earth in search of their “other half’ from whom they have been severed. In this story, these two human halves continue to exist parallel to one another on this plane of existence, whereas on another plane, they have met and become so powerful that they can do anything; they can populate the moon. On this other plane they have done this so successfully that the light pollution can be seen from the earth, where they both sit on this plane of existence, staring at the moon, yearning for one another. It was recorded at Georgian Court University in the tennis court, an enormous reverberant room where the five-second delay helped to make the loops and layers extra spacey.”
Tune in and stream MARTIN HOWTH’s “Viva Moon Vegas” RIGHT HERE where the video for prior single “Dear Dorine” is also playing.
Distant Dissonance will be released as a 2xLP cut at 45RPM and digitally on April 19th. Preorders and more can be found at Nefarious Industries HERE.
Stand by for additional videos from Distant Dissonance to post shortly.
MARTIN HOWTH is also booking new live events surrounding the album, including a show at the Belmar Arts Center on March 29th, a release show for Distant Dissonance at The Navesink Library April 13th, and more. Additional shows are currently being planned into the Summer months.
MARTIN HOWTH Live:
3/29/2024 Belmar Arts Center – Belmar, NJ w/ Jimmy “Basskid” Douglas, Matthew Trice
4/13/2024 The Navesink Library – Navesink, NJ *LP release show
5/18/2024 Rahway Library – Rahway, NJ w/ Boy vs. Ghost
6/15/2024 Asbury Underground @ Art 629 Gallery – Asbury Park, NJ
https://www.martinhowth.com
https://linktr.ee/MartinHowth
https://www.facebook.com/martinhowthmusic
https://www.instagram.com/martinhowth
https://martinhowth.bandcamp.com
https://www.youtube.com/@martinhowth
https://nefariousindustries.com
https://nefariousindustries.bandcamp.com
https://facebook.com/nefariousIndustries
https://instagram.com/nefarious_industries
https://twitter.com/nefariousInd