“Unlike with a lot of conceptronica, Mart Avi’s thoughtful thoughts don’t get in the way of the seduction effect.“ (Simon Reynolds)
Mart Avi makes "aftershock" music for trans-humanist wavelengths. A true child of post-genre with mental mid-century baritone, he hooks up neoglam aesthetics with modern r’n’b and charts unmapped sound territories for an age yet to come.
Avi’s three solo albums, ‘After Hours‘ (2013), ‘Humanista‘ (2015) and ‘Rogue Wave’ (2016) have topped every annual critics’ list in Estonia, and gained notable attention in international specialist publications. ‘Rogue Wave’ also grabbed the best electronic album title at the Estonian Music Awards. In 2017 Mart was awarded with the “delegates’ fave” prize of the international talent festival Tallinn Music Week (TMW) and has since performed at numerous “brilliant and bonkers” European events from Moscow Music Week to MENT Ljubljana.
Besides solo albums, Mart has released two full-length albums as a principal member of artpop group Badass Yuki and a cassette EP with “smalltown swank-rock gang“ Stones & that featured Russian cult act Felix Bondareff. He has also co-created some weirdly wonderful torch songs with Ajukaja, the reverend of Estonia’s leftfield house.
https://www.facebook.com/MartAvi.artist
https://soundcloud.com/martavi
https://martavi.bandcamp.com
https://open.spotify.com/album/1loi7yV9PjTKF94enBsacX
https://vk.com/martavivk
Discography
As Mart Avi
"Rogue Wave", 2016 (Self)
"Humanista", 2015 (Self)
"Crooner Tapes" Cass, 2013 (Porridge Bullet)
"After Hours" LP, 2013 (Porridge Bullet)
"Vision / Noble Heart" 7" Single, 2012 (Porrdige Bullet)
"(Proto) After Hours" CD, 2011 (Self)
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With Badass Yuki
"OPEN YOUR EYES TO THE LANDMASS" LP, 2014 (Porridge Bullet)
"Black Apple Trip" CD, 2011 (Mortimer Snerd)
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With Stones & Holes
"Stones & Holes" Cass EP, 2011 (Trash Can Dance)
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Other appearances:
Rainer Jancis - "Greedy Shopping Disaster" CD, 2015 (Jancis)
HÕFF #2 - "Põgene Reaalsusest" CD, Horror Film Festival comp, 2014 (Trash Can Dance)
The Fractal Skulls & Friends - "M", Cass EP, 2012 (The Fractal Skulls)
VA "Kohalik ja kohatu 3" CD, (Seksound) 2010
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Video singles:
Mart Avi "Blind Wall" (2017)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYB13s3Dsqc
Mart Avi / Toshio Masuda "The Alley Through The Pillow" (2015)
https://youtu.be/3tx6IU1Kkr4
Badass Yuki "America" (2014)
https://youtu.be/swD3XI9fC7g
Badass Yuki “Changeling” (2009)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwtGh62_XYw
Ajukaja & Mart Avi "In So Many Ways" (2013)
https://youtu.be/cST-bQnrJ8Q
Ajukaja & Mart Avi "Honeymoon Killers" (2013)
https://youtu.be/1xyQocXuQC0
Press quotes
“In some ways Mart Avi’s music and performance could be a missing "aftershock" from the end-part of Shock and Awe – Euro Eighties neo-glam aesthetics meets modern R&B. I would situate his presence as Billy Mackenzie meets Thomas Leer (but if Leer was using today's technology, including voice-processing software).”
“Unlike with a lot of conceptronica, the thoughtful thoughts don't get in the way of - nor are they necessary to activate - the seduction effect.“
- Simon Reynolds (US)
“A lanky mysterious figure, drawing brilliantly and dangerously on the sonic ectoplasm left by Bowie and Associates, Avi brought an alien strangeness and brittle glamour that was at times spine-tingling to witness.
And, vitally, Avi has the air of one who possesses an ill-gotten genius, a C21st Loki who has just nicked your smartphone.”
- Richard Foster, The Quietus (UK)
“Mart Avi is plucking out shrapnel from the endless avalanche of human experience and clumping it together, manufacturing a strange, often brittle coherence. His voice is often the central adhesive, his illustrious-yet-precarious vibrato rising up through the centre like a fountain stream.“
- Jack Chuter ATTN: Magazine (UK)
“His drawling, theatrical baritone is stretched and dragged through all manner of manipulated ambient future noise, jazz and easy listening to the point where you feel David Bowie would’ve been begging for a guest spot. Avi undoubtedly exists on the distant, undefined borders of modern pop. But it’s here that the new species are discovered, and Avi is still determinedly uncatalogued.”
- Gigwise (UK)
"Mart Avi takes to the stage in a high-belted mac and umbrella, and proceeds to prance, preen, croon and pose around the stage to his acid-lounge-pop backing track like a post-Soviet Baltic Bowie."
- John Rogers, Crack Magazine (UK)
“Mart Avi is weird as hell and I love him. If you ever wished that John Maus would make an easy-listening sex record, I have some very good news for you right here.
- Matthew Neale, Clash Magazine (UK)
Mart Avi is a new breed of popstar who manages to look and sound distinctively retro while also pointing to the future. Something of an oddball, he’s certainly theatrical but has the nous to pull it off; “conceptronica” says one well-known critic. Mesmerising says us.”
- Derek Roberston, Europavox
“One of the most extraordinary concert experiences. Mart is a true child of post-genre.“
- Anastasia Connor, Drowned in Sound (UK)
“If pop music didn’t already exist and should be invented today, then the outcome would probably sound something like this. In some parallel universe these tunes could be the radio hits of the highest rotation.“
- “Rogue Wave” 5/5 review by Silvia Urgas, Postimees (EE)
„In its’ earnest lust and attempts to call back a human lost somewhere beyond this world, "Rogue Wave" is more alive and eventually much warmer than all these "sincere and immediate“ vibrations between the beards and scalps of the countless hipster bards.“
- “Rogue Wave”, 10/10 review by Berk Vaher, Eesti Ekspress (EE)
