| This is a catalog of the work that I have done since 1994. There are some songs here in .ra or .rmj format for you to listen to. (SONG DOWNLOADS WILL TAKE A WHILE, BE FOREWARNED!).. Use the Back button or the "Other Homepage" to RETURN TO HOMEPAGE |
| MARTIN
WARREN: THE OTTAWA TAPES (May - August 1994) |
| THE OTTAWA TAPES is a 45-minute demo collection recorded (strangely enough) in Ottawa. Story-songs like "Knife" mix absurdity and wry observation. The music is rough, and so is the recording. |
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SONGS: Spook, I Really Like You, If It
Makes You Feel Any Better, Damage, Goodbye to You, Knife, Not Too Much, San Diego, Burning Pig, Yours Infernally, Marquis Delayed, Waiting For Dawn, Shut You Up, Egg, I Dig You |
| Songs by Martin Warren. Recorded live to
2-track w/ experimental overdubs. Keyboards on "Spook", "If It Makes You Feel Any Better", and "Damage" by Kevin Brennan. |
| MARTIN WARREN: Taste of Blood (September 1994 - April 1995) |
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In this extremely lo-fi recording, story-song lyrics and vocal experimentation give equal thirds fun, fear, and food for thought. The title track is a campfire song gone completely over the edge, telling three greusome little stories before there is an end to it. 'Oaxaca' might make you want to go to Mexico and shoot smack. 'Please, Don't Sing' shows that the bats are truly in the belfry here, as if there was any doubt on this CD. 'The Keys' is an epic and maybe overly-eager exorcism of lost love. NOTE: The source cassette for Taste of Blood was lost in the ether for a number of years. It was only in 2000 that versions of some songs were finally located, and, even if they were 3rd generation dubs which had been sent to friends, the album could finally be reconstructed. |
| SONGS: Talk To Me (Instrumental), Cryptography, House on Fire, Taste of Blood, Please Don't Sing, Oaxaca, Goldfish, The Keys, Baby I, Tales of the Aussie Outback,Old King Henry, Tumble Down, Too Many Fish, Call It Anything, Krakatoa (Instrumental) |
| Songs by Martin Warren. Recorded live to 2-track w/ experimental overdubs. Lead guitar on "Cryptography" and "House on Fire" by Robb Chessie. Percussion and lead guitar on "Tales of the Aussie Outback" by Kevin Brennan. |
| Martin Warren: THAW (May 1995 - April 1997) |
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THAW is fragmentary; written and recorded in pieces in Vancouver, Ottawa, and Fredericton. As a result, it suffers from a lack of focus. There is some fun stuff here. "Aracu Fish" and "Packaged Deal" take full advantage of the studio setting to show some interesting sounds. Lyrically, this bunch of songs lacks coherence. |
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SONGS: Lunch on a Plane, Dragging You Down, Aracu Fish, Gnat, Packaged Deal, Full-Body Cast, Projection Room, Thaw |
| Songs & Production by Martin Warren. Lead guitar on "Dragging You Down" and fiddle on "Gnat" by Robb Chessie. Effects guitar on "Packaged Deal" by Joey Haley. Mostly recorded at CHSR-FM studios, Fredericton. |
| ARCHITECTURE AND COMMUNITY PLANNING [ARCHPLAN] (May 1996 - May 1998) |
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ARCHPLAN was a studio collaberation with
Joey Haley. Its goal was to create a "bureocratic music". The songs were studio constructions, using tape loops for rhythm tracks, and ukeleles driven through effects processors for some of the sounds. All songs were recorded at CHSR-FM studios in Fredericton, NB. Exotic locations were used for the lyric settings. |
| SONGS: Soapstone Eskimoes, Easter Island
Statues, Architecture and Community Planning, My Tranquility, Crab Legs on the Beach, Spy Gem, Sassifras 4B, Stucco and Tofu. All lyrics on Architecture and Community Planning by Martin Warren. |
| Martin Warren: LOYALIST COURT (July 1997) |
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A group of basement experiments (maybe they can be called 'songs') featuring a pc-speaker metronome & repetitive keyboard, an unplugged electric guitar, completely improvised lyrics about piglet snouts and penguins, and something that sounds halfway between a bass and a bandsaw. This 15-minute 'e.p.' is now included as a fun postscript to the Architecture & Community Planning CD. |
| SONGS: You Were Penguin Lover, Worship, Piglet Snout Blues, Penguin Icebox |
| Martin Warren: ONE BOWLFULL OF RICE GRUEL FOR YOU (May 1999 - May 2000) |
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Most of the songs on ONE BOWLFULL were written between Janurary and March of 2000, although "Age of Gold" (possibly the best track) dated from 1999. These tunes were folksy offerings ranging from the bleak "Trail to Numa" (a song inspired by the scarlet fever epidemic in the midwest 'round 'bout the turn of 1900), to "Matter of Time"'s "THAW"-like introspection (with coherence). |
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SONGS: Age of Gold, Trail to Numa, The Guest House, Quasimodo Is Free, Sandeaters, Musala, Matter of Time |
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Songs by Martin Warren. Keyboards, Harp, Mandolin, and Slide Guitar by Kevin Brennan. |
| Martin
Warren: THE GUTTER SONGS (July - November 2000) |
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THE GUTTER SONGS were recorded off-the-cuff to a blaster, but most of the songs have a serious angle. Country influence became more evident in "Overtook" and "I Walked Away For You", and "I'd Never Take You For Granted" is a rare ballad. |
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SONGS: I'd Never Take You For Granted, You Won't Have to Share, Heart Torn In Two, Can of Worms, Overtook, It's Your Brain (Synthetic Paranormals), I Walked Away For You, In The Gutter, I Don't Want To Want No-One, Hi Jean, At the Table |
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Songs by Martin Warren. Recorded live to condenser microphone. |
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These songs were written & recorded quickly, but are more crafted & blatantly folky than most stuff. "Words Fail Me" may well be my best song. Mellow compared to the edgy "GUTTER SONGS", and more crafted. |
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SONGS: Every Page Indeed, Words Fail Me, Strange in my Shoes, One More Prayer, Never Nuthin' Wrong, Bring on the Wagons, That's the Past, Miss Mischievious |
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The songs on NO SNOW were recorded over the month of June, 2001. "You Need Chains" could work in a spaghetti western or a zombie flick with all its fear and trepidation. "So Much Time" is a love song too distant in its perspective to really be one. "Release the Dragon" meditates on the rain, and is haunting. The title track and "Real Good Reasons" are both forceful statements on individualism. The effectiveness of many of the songs on No Snow In The Mountains is seriously hampered by poor tape quality. |
| SONGS: You Need Chains, So Much Time, Bindweed, A James A. Michener Novel, What You Know, Real Good Reasons, Release the Dragon, No Snow in the Mountains, You Need Chains (take #1) |
| Songs by Martin Warren. Recorded live to 2-track. |
| Martin Warren: AN AFTERNOON (July, 2001) |
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These are a bunch of songs recorded in AN
AFTERNOON (July 14, to be percise). One look at the titles will give you
the idea on this one: Too many old monster movies and bluegrass lp's maybe affected the lyrics, and the music has a strong Western tonic. A lot of this recreates that "old geezer in the backwoods gun shop" sound. If you listen closely, you can hear the sound of someone's teeth falling out, (or is that a barn faling in on itself?!?) |
| SONGS: Watching the Cat's Face Explode,My
Underarms Stink, My Baffin Island Love, Show Me Your Iron Lung, Leeches, Tsunami Tsunami, Ogre of Doom, Haitian Vacation, Sabbath |
| Songs by Martin Warren. Recorded live to 2-track. |
| MARTIN WARREN: Seismograph (August - December 2001) |
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SEISMOGRAPH was recorded between August and early December 2001. Totalling only 35 minutes, the collection is intensely focussed and pulls no punches lyrically. It is nowhere nearly as joyful as Warren's previous effort, An Afternoon, recorded scarcely a month before. The first version of "Another For My Friends" sets an almost depressed tone. "What's In That Bottle?" adds angry tonic, but "What's This All About?" turns the questions back on the listener. "You Were Not There" menaces, and "595 King Street" sarcastically spits out disjointed images of a disjointed party in a way that could be called 'angry'. The second version of "Another For My Friends" is closer to a bar-room raveup, and proves that Warren won't necessarily perform this kind of song the same way twice. The spare recording values on Seismograph magnify Warren's direct delivery. -T. McZinn |
| Martin
Warren: THE SLATE (April - June 2005) |
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THE SLATE was digitally recorded in May and June of 2005, and contains a few songs written over the previous three years of hiatus as well as some new ones. THE SLATE has more variety than any previous effort since the mid-'90's Taste of Blood and Thaw, both in terms of the song styles and overall sound. The title track continues the familiar high-intensity Dylanesque approach shown on a lot of Warren's 2000-2001 work, but that's where that particular similarity ends. 'Tangier' is an almost-escapist interlude with wierd piano. 'Attic Blues' sounds like solo John Phillips meets quiet but gloomy Darklands-era Jesus & Mary Chain. 'Cappuccino Radio' has an early Cohen-style simmering rage to it. 'Sushi & Tommy's Brains', another absurdist story in the vein of 'The Guest House' from ONE BOWLFULL; this time with more of a psychedelic goth thing to it and a spooky and unsettling ending. 'Groundhog' is an acoustic punk lament about a groundhog rotting in the living room. 'Orangatan Reposessed' is a reflective diatribe against 'joiners', and has some interesting muttering to it. Why all the animal titles? I guess it has something to do with the song variety. Anyway, there are several instrumentals throughout this CD which give the lyrics a chance to settle first. -T. McZinn |
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SONGS: The Slate (version 1), Tangier,Attic Blues, May Your Prophecies Never End, Anteater (instrumental), Sushi & Tommy's Brains, Groundhog, Orangatan Reposessed, Cappuccino Radio, Chungking Itinerary (instrumental), Equation (instrumental), Tangier (Reprise), The Slate(v 2) |
| Songs by Martin Warren. Digitally recorded and mixed, May/June 2005. |
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