Brian Eno gave us music for airports, Hiroshi Yoshimura music for postcards – nine of them, to be precise – and Frahm thought of animals. It can be practical when music supplies its intended use directly in the title, as a serving suggestion. The Dutchman Martijn Deijkers is a little less specific with the title of his latest release. Is this music for every occasion, or does it contain something existential? Perhaps we should just let it »be« and go in.
As Martyn, Deijkers has built an astonishingly consistent discography over the past 20 years, beginning with drum’n’bass before gently leading dubstep and UK garage into technoid territory. Always in tow: an irresistible feel for crisp grooves. That he can do things differently, too, he has shown repeatedly, for instance on the beautiful piano »remix« of Efdemin’s »Acid Bells«. The new album should not come as a culture shock even to those who regularly hear his jazz-inflected NTS shows, in which Pharoah Sanders, Herbie Hancock or Ornette Coleman might appear.
With »Phantom Jazz«, the title of the record’s second, rather grimly disposed track, he at least brainstorms a fitting genre name for what is happening here. At its core, this is still bass music, sometimes sounding as though it were being played on a small, sweaty stage. Music For Existing works above all because Martyn »invites« jazz into his music – also in the person of saxophonist Mark Cisneros or pianist Duval Timothy. He is not interested in emulating sounds, but in connecting the shared qualities of the genre worlds he is thinking together: freedom and unpredictability, trust in the moment, communication between individual elements and instruments.ten.
Music For Existing
