Martel is no ordinary name on the circuit. Underground visionary, architect, game-dev, musician, his path cuts from Titograd to London, Philly to Nicosia, always chasing sound, craft, and truth. It’s migration and music stitched together with a cinematic edge, and now it lands squarely in our NUDE Techno series.
Fresh off his hypnotic cut ‘The Ghost’, Martel steps up with a 60-minute mix that dives deep into the darker corners of techno. Expect rolling grooves, cinematic soundscapes, and heads-down pressure designed for basements and rooftops. This isn’t festival confetti, this is sweat-on-the-walls energy for the underground.
Martel’s blend of emotion, precision, and subversion makes this set one for the heads. The kind of mix you put on loud, lock into, and let the hours disappear.
Today, he joins the NUDE Techno podcast, with an hour of Techno. Listen to it below on SoundCloud & Mixcloud. If you are feeling this series, then please consider supporting it on Mixcloud Select.
Sum up this podcast in 10 words…
Layered, nuanced, weaves poetry with the subterranean.
What’s your personal favourite track on it?
Colossal by Aladarus & Shabaam. Epic yet subtle, proper techno.
What’s the special ingredient in this mix?
The natural treading from organic, tribal themes to Nick Cave, to IDM-ish dub & grooves all the way into delicately crafted techno.
Tell us about your next EP?
The album is basically a techno meditation on the colonial realities that still plague the Congo and central Africa.
There’s confessions in there, monologues, interviews as various mercenaries and warlords drone on about what is just and what is not, with the musical backdrop that blends afro-grooves with sounds of nature, bringing it all forward with the dense and weighted production style. Sub-heavy and immersive, it’s also quite cinematic and has an almost, photographic drama to everything that takes place in the tracks…
Yet it still works in a club on top of all I’ve mentioned.
What have you got coming up?
Well, a slow build-up of an upcoming catalogue… Some works are just as political, others less so but more intimate and sensual in their atmosphere, but definitely a lot of things coming up!
And finally, do you have a special message for our readers?
Fight for your right to party, regulate and pressure your local landlords, vote for limits on never-ending rent spikes and don’t let nightlife become a luxury. We all slave away during the workdays as is, the last thing we need is unaffordable, pricy and posh raves – they’ve kidnapped the word anyways, there’s no need to surrender the essence to them as well.
Tracklist:
Rene Wise – Anxiety
Martel – Lumumba
Menzi – IC3 RMX
Martel – Brazzaville
Mark Ernestus – Rhythm
Nick Cave – Jesus Alone
Vardae – The Light Motion
Vardae – Flaming as a Cloud
Shed – UFO
Hertz – Timballe
Hertz – Fro Me Back
Aladarus & Shabaam – Colossal
I Am Bam – Das Ist Berlin
I Am Bam – Berlin by Nite
Hertz – Integer
Kuss – Limits Oma