Martha And The Muffins
Metro Music

THE REVIEW

It's hot. The heat is unbearable. Hot air blows from the tunnels, and the speakers play something that sounds like an unlikely Frank Sinatra. Blame the echo, blame the echo. Blame the metro. It's like walking through someone's mouth, with breath on your back and saliva sticking your pants to your legs. It's a crappy day. When it's like this, the only good thing to do is go home, take the record from its shelf, give it a clean, and let it spin. Maybe even have a beer, a few cigarettes. You make the best of it, with the wind that has become a relief.

"Metro Music" (1980, Virgin) sounds like a bucket of ice-cold water in a sultry summer. Fresh, sharp, it imprints itself in your ears from the start. Light-hearted, a bit surreal, rounded, for background and not. "Metro Music" can be a lifeline to cling to with great pleasure, nodding along... always with great pleasure.

The name Martha And The Muffins corresponds to two girls - two Marthas, in fact - who, along with a guitar, a bass, a sax, and drums, play keyboards and sing turning Pop and New Wave into a single medal, blending the two sides without being able to return to the original balance.

It starts with the crescendo, as if everything starts from afar, of "Echo Beach" that crashes on the drums, to end with the finale of "Terminal Twilight" all made of sax and beauty. The recipe is simple: two voices that respond to and overlap each other, a simple and syncopated drum, two keyboards that enjoy finding fresh and necessary melodies. Over everything, a sax that stings, appears, and disappears whenever it wants.

Don't worry if you compulsively await the silences and starts of "Cheesies And Gum"; don't fear if you find yourself whistling the hooks of "Hide And Seek". It's part of the game. Know that from the moment you take this record in your hands, you will be part of a game set up by the two Marthas and much broader than you could have imagined. Their goal is to make you sing it from start to finish and like Bruno Ganz in "Der amerikanische Freund", there's nothing left for you to do but put your head in the frame, surrender to the events, and sing, sing, sing. And the beautiful thing is that you'll enjoy it.

Yes, I propose: for a sparkling world and a sustainable life. "Metro Music" the record of background music.