by Andrew Stephens-Rennie
I first encountered the music of Martyn Joseph two years ago when some friends invited me out to a concert at Hugh’s Room in west end Toronto. While I wasn’t able to attend the concert, I was able to pick up his latest album, “Deep Blue.” That album became my lifeblood for the intervening year between the missed concert, and finally being able to catch him live in January 2008 at the same venue.
Joseph’s music took me to a ragged depth and a raw profundity that I had not encountered for some time. Martyn Joseph’s narrative flare and his incredible guitar work had me captivated.
Martyn Joseph is a Welsh singer-songwriter who has been recording for over 25 years. Although he didn’t start out this way, Joseph’s more recent releases wrestle with deep issues of pain and injustice encountered throughout the world. Encountering such things, and becoming aware of their importance, it became increasingly difficult for Joseph to continue writing the same pop music with which his career had begun. And so, he turned to the poetry of prophetic lament.
Martyn’s particular strength is in the lyrical narrative of his songs, whether contemporary protests against injustice and inhumanity, a musical psalm to the fulfilment and fragilities of love, or a piercing précis of social history.
On Deep Blue, Joseph lashes out against the powers of imperialism in “How Did We End Up Here?” but later returns to us in humility, on the final cut, “Turn Me Tender.” Joseph’s penitential prayer cries, “Turn me tender again, fold me into you / Turn me tender again and mould me to new / Faith lost its promise and bruised me deep blue / Turn me tender again through union with you.”
A mainstay of the Greenbelt music festival in the UK, he has been in demand on both sides of the Atlantic for over two decades, giving what thousands have described as one of the best live music experiences of their lives.
I suppose I’d have to concur with that assessment. That Wednesday night in Toronto was an intimate and moving experience, as Martyn bared his musical soul, calling us to respond to his stories with pathos and compassion for our broken-yet-beautiful world.
Successive albums, including “Vegas,” and the newly released “Evolved” trigger new emotions and continue to take us on the road of redemption. All this to say, I’m absolutely excited about hosting Martyn in Ottawa in a few short weeks.
Even though Rasputin’s is no more, I’m glad we still have a venue to host these events.
This year, Martyn is making one stop in Ottawa on Thursday February 5, 2009 at Ecclesiax Church (2 Monk Street near Bank & Fifth Ave). Tickets are available in advance for $15 through www.yourticketzone.com, or by calling the church at 613.565.4343. Remaining tickets will be available for $20 at the door.
