John Martyn
Solid Air

What is John Martyn's secret? How does he manage to weave a thread of light between games of shadow? To write songs that remain suspended between spirals of dense, solid air?

At the end of the sixties, he started from folk music, which he played as a young man in Scottish clubs at the beginning of his career, but since then his journey has undergone continuous innovation, using special effects on his electrified guitar (the Echoplex that creates a kind of loop) and personally filtering countless influences, reaching a kind of ballad that encompasses folk, jazz, blues, rock with the result of enhancing the emotional side of these genres.

His own voice over the years has transformed into a rich and dark blend but never aggressive: a blown and whispering voice like a magical instrument that no one will ever invent.

"Solid Air" is his most precious fruit, a jewel from 1972 that will remain in the hearts of enthusiasts and will always conquer new ones. Accompanied by illustrious names from the folk-rock circuit like ex-Pentangle Danny Thompson on bass and Dave Mattacks of the Fairport Convention on drums, John Martyn creates a languid spiral of sound held in mid-air by the muffled and never intrusive rhythm.

Thus the title track, opened by Thompson's double bass, conducted by John Bundrick's liquid keyboards and the lazy counterpoint of John’s acoustic, is dedicated to the depression of his friend Nick Drake, who a year later would take his own life.

You just need to close your eyes and let yourself go to the hypnotic magic of the voice....

"Don't you know what's going wrong inside your mind
And I can tell you don't like what you find.
When you're moving through
Solid Air ... solid air"

Do not open them immediately because several surprises await you. Ballads rich in atmosphere like "Don't want to know" or "Go down easy" in which John's voice is like the breath of a dark tropical bird that captivates and stuns on the sparse sonic carpet of the acoustic and double bass.

Acoustic echoes of the British folk tradition like the bouncy "Over the Hill" supported by the great Richard Thompson's mandolin. Blues where the voice transforms and darkens like "The man in the station" and the old classic by Skip James "I'd rather be the devil". Nervous compositions and charged with restrained electricity like "Dreams By the Sea".
Splendid folk-jazz like "May you never" which is a personal affair between the voice and Martyn's great acoustic technique. In the end, you find yourself asking like a fool: but what kind of music is it? How should I classify it? How many damn boxes do I have to check?

Someone else across the ocean was attempting the same experiments as John Martyn, daring the blend between the old traditional ballad and the urgency of new musical expression: Joni Mitchell, Shawn Phillips, John Fahey himself, destined, except for the "lady of the canyon," for the cult of the few.

And it's a pity.