This nice review was posted at the website
Celestial Biscuit: A Guide to the Ann Arbor-Ypsi Music Scene! It is referring to the 2003 Dragon Cat EP on the now defunct Burning Tongue Records.
Martes Martes - "Dragon Cat"
Overall Rating: 7.9
Lyrics: N/A
Melodies: 7.6
Arrangements: 8.2
Thematicity: 8.1
Originality: 8.6
Production: 7.3
References to mammals, and particularly those of the order carnivora, in band names are experiencing a surge of populatity these days. The reason behind the phenomenon isn't too difficult to fathom: natural imagery tends to come into vogue when segments of a given society begin to see that society's mores as strictures repressing its members conscious and unnconscious desires; hence Steppenwolf, both the band and the book. Among the menagerie of wolves, bears, and tigers currently populating popular music, however, one seldom encounters a pine marten, the creature whose binomial nomenclature gives Ann Arbor's Martes Martes its name, and for good reason: such a small, elusive, an unimposing creature isn't usually considered a fit symbol for humanity's buried primal instincts. Martes Martes make a compelling case, however, primarily because their portrayal of those instincts is markedly different from that of most of their contemporaries in a way I find quite refreshing. Dragon Cat, the band's debut, evokes a longing for directness, playfulness, seclusion, contemplation, and self-expression, and while such themes may be common currency in folk music, they seldom find expression in the pseudo-electronic post-rock subgenre where the band has made its home. Furthermore, there is also an undercurrent of darkness and solitude to their compositions: the overall mood recalls the moments of clarity one has while gazing out, through the fluctuating half-reflections of hearth-flame on the bottom of a window-pane from a room in a secluded cabin, at one of December's intimate and silent panoramas and beholding, for an instant, the form of an owl as it swoops to snatch some small creature in its talons. Scoff at my florid imagery if you will, but Martes Martes is genuinely capable (and without lyrics) of such poetic imagery, and they go about it by blending analog and digital elements in their music in just the right proportion to keep their music playful without losing its evocative power or introspective quality. Furthermore, the band utilizes some of the most unorthodox instrumentation in delivering their message -- warm synth-generated beats and handclaps form a foundation over which drift layers of guitar, recorder, folk harp, and french horn (a "wolf" instrument since Prokofiev, but one that seems to fit pine martens equally well) -- and the unusual arrangements add to album's sense of sometimes playful, sometimes serious wakingness. I can't say this album (which is really more of an EP) isn't without its share of flaws, but the thing that makes it so intriguing is that most of those flaws are results of some difficult and highly original attempts to make its production reinforce its music's most essential qualities.
A few more concrete things ought to be said about both the production and the set of instrumental performances on Dragon Cat, the first of which is that neither is particularly polished: the horns and the recorder sound somewhat naked at part, and many of the editing decisons (including the background tape noise of "Tanuki Song I") are quite unorthodox. I suspect that most of this is intentional, and I'm also of the opinion that it's largely successful in heightening the music's sense of homespun intimacy. It doesn't always achieve the perfect balance between the sonorous and the charmingly rough-hewn, however, and while the deviations are generally small enough and the balance difficult enough to achieve that the result is admirable, they also keep Dragon Cat from being truly specacular, which is to say from persuading its listeners to become totally immersed in its snowbound reveries. The album's bonus track, a four-minute track of rhythmic crackling and fuzz, also does a little bit of damage to the record's thematic consistency. In general, though, the tone set during "Broken Lung" and "Foggy Morning" (the latter of these, on which the timbre of the horns dominates over that of the electronic percussion, is probably the record's best track) is maintained well throughout the album. All in all, Dragon Cat is certainly a good record and a strikingly original one. I'd even go as far as to say that it verges on greatness, but Martes Martes still has some fine tuning to do in fitting the style of production they're developing therein to their sound. Needless to say, I'm eagerly anticipating the record's sequel.
Brooks Thomas – Fri, 2006 – 09 – 08 23:03