‘Places We Think We Know’ is a limited edition vinyl LP produced as part of Irish artist Mary McIntyre’s eponymously titled exhibition at Dundee Contemporary Arts, 2021. The compositions in this album have been produced by Martial Canterel in response to Mary McIntyre’s photographs and function as the audio component in McIntyre’s exhibition.

For the exhibition, ‘Places We Think We Know’, DCA commissioned a body of photographic work, which sees McIntyre explore ideas of interior space, both physical and psychological. Accompanying these photographic works, McIntyre constructed a series of installations that intersect the gallery space in different ways to create bespoke environments from which to consider each image.

The exhibition at DCA debuted a new suite of modular synth compositions by Sean McBride of Martial Canterel, made in response to McIntyre’s photographs. Within these new electronic compositions, unfolding connections between French Impressionism and cold analogue electronics are embedded with the augmented chords and harmonic structures of Ravel and Debussy.

As part of McIntyre’s installations, Martial Canterel’s music is audible in the gallery at different times of the day, further enriching the experience of moving through the exhibition and engaging with McIntyre’s work.

LP / Digital Album

Here’s the latest EP from Martial Canterel, a solo minimal synth act from Brooklyn, NYC.

EP / Digital Album

Since composer Sean McBride unveiled his first utterance as Martial Canterel almost 2 decades ago, he has produced a body of work both substantial and alluring within the field of live analogue electronic music. Effortlessly fusing a variety of styles and influences, Martial Canterel is one of the premiere outfits utilizing analogue electronics and modular synthesizers. In particular FM synthesis is employed to produce clustered polyphonies and organic atmospheres – a staple of his signature style.

Three years have passed since Martial Canterel’s last full length album Gyors, Lassù was released on Dais Records. During this down time, McBride found himself in a state of flux, ebbing back and forth between material displacement and musical aestheticism. His expert pedigree in electronic sound and arrangement bridges the gap created by an undecidability between life at home and abroad – his new album, Lost At Sea, is an attempt for the artist to locate common ground, mutating fable with reality, exteriority and interiority.

LP

Medical Records proudly presents Volume III of a collection of “Forgotten Tracks, Sketches and Unfinished Work 2002-2004” by Martial Canterel. This release coincides as a standalone with Medical’s other releases of Volume II as well as a special 3LP compiling Volumes I-III. Sean McBride has been producing work under the Martial Canterel moniker dating back to 2002 as well as working as half of Xeno And Oaklander. These tracks capture the allure and depth of Sean’s early work exploring rhythms and perfectly crafted pop songs using a very early incarnation of limited instrumentation.

Fans of Martial Canterel’s early work (think “Austerton” and “Sister Age”) will be instantly elated. This is the first time these tracks have been released on vinyl and have been remastered for this release by Martin Bowes at the Cage, UK. Contains special bonus insert with lyrics. Fans of early Martial Canterel as well as other cold wave icons such as A Blaze Color, Snowy Red, and the like will need this collection. Presented on high-quality 180gram classic vinyl.

3 x LP

Since his first live performances in 2002, Sean McBride, aka Martial Canterel (who also performs as half of the duo Xeno & Oaklander), has crafted his electronic sound in a peculiar intersection between avant-garde and pop. Merging the influences of the first wave of relatively unknown minimal electronic bands in northern Europe, and seminal industrial noise bands such as Throbbing Gristle and SPK, with the smoothly stylish songcraft of early British New Wave, Martial Canterel records and performs using analogue synthesizers, sequencers and drum machines exclusively, molding electricity to fix the action of music creation in substance. The mastery of his composition technique, a second nature of harmonic complexity, along with a unique talent for melodies, enables him to manufacture gems of extreme noise pop, making use of all its unexpected ingredients.

Gyors, Lassù marks an important milestone in the evolution of Martial Canterel‘s music, progressing far beyond the cages of “minimal synth” and embracing the noisier qualities of its sound with a renewed urgency, a kind of thickness embodied in multiple layers using only eurorack, Serge and Roland 100 modular systems at his disposal and flushing out the entire session in one take. Sine waves are rendered into walls of guitar-like noise on songs like “And I Thought”, while the stretching out and liquifaction of what were once very precise pointillistic staccato synth arpeggios are marshaled into layers of violent bliss on “Gyors/Lassù”. The analogue labor and the density of sound highlight the character of continuous performance of the music, where the intertwining of the artist and his work is profoundly material in its quality. As in a modern embodiment of the potter’s wheel…the hands, the texture of clay, with ceramic material. Translated lyrically and conceptually, music performance is for time what travel represents in space, and Gyors/Lassù is the sonic rendering of McBride’s wanderings between Hungary (“Bulvàr”, “Budapest II”) and the South of Italy (“Teano”), between vibrant rhythmic structures and melancholic instrumentals, balancing its bodily intensity with abstract experimentation against the regression of the modern listener.

Listen here and order here.