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A BRIEF SUMMARY

MARTIN HALL
LP/CD/MC
MAY 2018
PANOPTIKON (OPTIK 50)

In relation to his 40th anniversary as a musician Martin Hall released the double album A Brief Summary on the 4th of May 2018, a retrospective release featuring several new recordings such as the digital single and video track ”Lesser Gods”. Another newly recorded track is ”Semi”.

Quite surprisingly the album went directly in as #2 on the official Danish vinyl hitlist in week 19 (2018), giving Hall his highest chart ranking ever.

1. P.O. (2:36)2. St. Petersburg Notes (4:04)3. Lesser Gods (4:11)4. A.S.A.P. (1:51)5. 40 Versions Of The Time Before (2:41)6. Semi (3:46) 7. Minor Frame (2:42)8. Ash And Lemon Water (3:09)9. Tu Es Mon Image (7:00)10. Tout Le Monde (1:32)11. Plaza Flesh (2:33) 12. Muted Cries (4:17)13. Interim (1.46)14. Cue (3:20)15. Emblematic (2:21)16. Exit Signs (4:55)17. Sob Story (3: 39) 18. Pantomime (3:38)19. Schwund (1:46)20. Meth (8:20)21. Mimic (4:28)22. Replicator (2:46)

P.O.

I’ve seen your face a thousand times
I’ve seen you hide in the crowd
I feel you run within my blood
But dreams are never quite enough
Not enough

All I want to believe in is the look in your eyes
All I want to believe in is your sigh
Let me stay here forever, let me stay here tonight
Let us stay here together for a while

No one knows you better than me

ST. PETERSBURG NOTES

The cigarette smoke in the air
The smouldering waves everywhere
Full of eyes
Prune-coloured eyes
In Moscow and St. Petersburg
The places turn into a blur
In your mind
A violent sigh

The salt water traces that burn on your skin
The words that you hid in letters never sent
Your heartbeat’s a rage never tamed, never shown
Wherever you go, you’re never alone

The alcohol glows for a while
It’s shining like gold in the light
Like a trace
Of halcyon days
Like ghosts in their circuits of loss
You carry your own little cross
As a shield
Against any need

Wherever you go, you leave something behind
The parts of yourself you’ve been trying to find
The smell of the night seems to stick to your skin
All locked in a cage, the journey begins

LESSER GODS

Suddenly
Came to see
Everything so differently
Children of lesser gods
Haunt my mind
All the time

Strangers inside of me
All distant memories
Turning another page
In the book of days
Rain falling in the night
Like teardrops from the sky
Falls like my imagery
Falling inside of me
Seemingly endless

Pauses inside of me
Empty of memory
All of the whys and hows
Coming full circle now
Rain falling in the night
Falls from an empty sky
Seemingly

A.S.A.P.

She’s turning away to lie still for a while
Just watching the clouds drifting by on the night sky
The skin of a girl and the face of a child
She touches my hand and suggests that we go out

She’s checking her face in the mirror
Adjusting her hair endlessly
The hard light of the elevator
Follows her out in the street
It’s too hot to sleep

40 VERSIONS OF THE TIME BEFORE

Falling asleep on a long distance flight
The images in the still of the night
A scent of waste
The sight of your face

A flicker of uneasiness
Will I be able to forget now?
Nurses and young girls in a row
How can I ever let you go now?

Like 40 versions of the time before
The ballerinas at my feet
The connoisseurs out in the street
You mean nothing to me

Just try to tell yourself the tale again
You tell yourself it’s all the same again

The city lights that came alive
The stars that fell down from the sky
You turned around within the light
Your skin so frail and lily-white
The centre of the Western world

A glamorous confusion zipped
Upon the parting of your lips
Intangible as every breath
As inescapable as death
It means nothing to me

SEMI

Hey baby
Let’s go out tonight
I don’t want to feel this way

Forget all your troubles
Forget them tonight

MINOR FRAME

Crowded Saturdays
Guest among ghosts
A girl made of shivers
Girls on their own

Rolled down shades
Sweet, harsh sweat
It’s the choked laughter
The unmade bed
All the things you might remember
Things you might forget

Looking young and old
In the same glance
Nervous tenderness
But steady at hand

Curly hair
And vinyl sounds
Guess it’s carved in the faces
Carved and painted down
A cigarette that’s burning
Along the line

I guess that she’s the one you won’t forget

ASH AND LEMON WATER

Ash and lemon water
Shining on your lips
Whatever you do
Don’t try to resist

It’s the kind of understanding that makes you feel uncomfortable
It’s the kind of circumstances that make you feel so old

You’re all immune
To crowded rooms
Your heart’s made of air
It’s easy to share

You’re sliding down
The open sky
A handle that breaks
Excitement’s a rage

TU ES MON IMAGE

Les rails de la nuit noire
Ils brillent comme lumière
Le monde ne dort jamais
Nourrit nos rêves
Mon image de toi
Est tombée du ciel

Les rêves paraissent continuer
Les chants intérieurs
Murmure des mots inouïs
Tu es mon image
Enfourche la lumière comme une vague

Les yeux d’océan, d’amant ne mentent jamais
Détournons nous comme des étrangers

Tout ce que je veux, c’est tout
Tout ce que je veux, c’est toi
Tu es mon image, c’est toi

Les rails de la nuit noire
Ils brillent comme lumière
Le monde ne dort jamais
Nourrit nos rêves
Mon image de toi
Est tombée du ciel

Tombée du ciel
Tu es mon image
Plus bleus que toute raison
Timides comme tout mensonge

Des yeux d’amants jamais secs
Tu es mon image

TOUT LE MONDE

April 4 turning 9.25
Writing words in the air
Lovers left with a cool rainy day
Places no longer there

Cardboard letters and manners that fail
Paris Odéon girls
Doors are closing
Lights still glowing with a weak innocence

PLAZA FLESH

Show me your true desires
Show me your plaza flesh
Pictures of people dying
Seem to have no effect anymore

I don’t really give as much as a toss anymore
I just want to hide away, never beg anymore
I don’t really count the days or the hours anymore
‘Cause she’s gone

Come now
Inject the daylight
Come here
Each little girl
At first
Just want to kiss you
But then I want it all
I want excess
Your plaza flesh

MUTED CRIES

The clouds in her eyes
A whispering need
Shedding her light all over me

Try recall the cities in twilight
The clubbing
The cigarette sky
As you notice the silence
The carvings
The memory lines
The muted cries

A jaded desire
A comforting need
Walls coming down
On callous beliefs

Try recall the cities in twilight
The clubbing
The cigarette sky
As you notice the silence
The carvings
The memory lines
The muted cries

CUE

The cities of light, the mirrors beneath the stars
In all of my life I’ve followed my untamed heart
It burns like a fever in the sleepless nights
Behind closed doors and behind closed eyes

The sea of the sky keeps shining a world of gold
The sweeter the song, the sadder the tale that’s told
Like a secret that I’ll never know
There’s a feeling that will follow me anywhere I go

I’ll walk on the waters
I’ll quiet the storms
With you as my reason
With you as my calm

EMBLEMATIC

I felt a sigh pass your lips
I saw the weight on your eyelids
Yet there you swagger and there you go
The mise-en-scène of your mercy drome

Too many images at play
Too many faces in a day’s work
Your sweet incentive, it’s so relentless
My grief’s been waiting for this day

No easy answers, only hard choices
I guess we came to the end of the road
Your random gender, my desolate needs
The splintered voices of lost beliefs

Trading commodities with no fixed presets
No traces left of a long gone starlet
Pornographers and secondhand consumer rights
All sons and lovers of 70’s delight

EXIT SIGNS

Cheekbones made of light
Somewhere it’s morning
The languid grey of night
Leaving the fragrance of a cry

Guess you’re sliding back into your life
The pressure on your eyelids
Patterns of waiting
Of suffocating
Replaying the same scene
Recalling the same dream

Cover any feeling
Cover any reason now
You’re breathing the same air
The same hysteria

Like a mirrorball that shines
Just another flash of light
Deteriorating
Forgetting the details
Rewriting the scene in your mind

The exit signs of light
She’s lying beside me
She’s hidden in a sigh
In the changes of a room

Guess she’s sliding back into her life
The pressure on her eyelids
The time that it’s taking
Before she awakens
It feels like a lifetime
A memory rewind

SOB STORY

Hide away
With somebody else by my side
It could have been anyone
It could have been you
A moment ago
Whatever you do
Whatever you say
It won’t be the same
Just won’t be the same

For someone like you
It’s all just a game
I guess it’s always the same
Whatever the stakes
It’s a reason to fail
A reason to hate

PANTOMIME

Feeling like Berlin 1929
So many feelings all caught up inside
Falling like cities seen through lovers’ eyes
Shaking with fever as they say goodbye

Each time you look
Somebody hides
All of the world
Up in the clouds

Feeling so stupid in this pantomime
All that I need is a pair of starry eyes

SCHWUND

Metaphysische Diskussionen in einer Bierstube: nichts ist, nichts wird, nichts ist nicht. Wir fassen uns selbst als rationale Wesen auf, die Tatsachen akzeptieren und Argumente respektieren, in Wirklichkeit jedoch glauben wir nur an das, an das zu glauben wir gelernt haben. Unsere Spiritualität ist eine mechanische Konstruktion.

Niemand kann gegen Vermutungen aufbegehren, die nicht formuliert worden sind. Weder sie noch ich. Wir sind an unsere Vermutungen gebunden. Gebunden an das gegenseitige fehlende Verständnis von uns selbst. Mutige Feiglinge sind wir, Gespenster aus dem Spanischen Bürgerkrieg, Fetzen von Erinnerungen an etwas, das einst geschah.

Wir sind das Geschehene. Wir sind Schwund.

METH

Wide eyes, swollen lips
She examines herself like she’s about to fade
Into air
Into all she disbelieves
Skin engraved with burns
Like a jaded belief about to disappear
There’s no need
To enact this line of ways

Trace the fading needs
The ebbing desirability
You’re turning away
Still hiding your face
Don’t you know your name?
Through all of these years it stayed the same
It’s always been you
I just couldn’t choose

Lines
She wets her lips
Leaning back with her arms wrapped around her knees
To adjust
To recalibrate the need
Words in pantomime
Eyes like shimmering marble
Pressure veiled by grace
Once again
Seems to settle for reserves

Don’t you feel the weight?
The slight hesitation, the delay
Aesthetic beliefs
Won’t cover this need
Don’t you know your name?
Through all of these years it stayed the same
Whatever I do
It’s always been you

Try to hold back the dawn
Try to hold back the morning
Hold back the night
If just for a while

MIMIC

The midnight music from a distant room
The morning light, it always comes too soon
Lick your tongue now
Against my desires
Late at night
Even the sounds, they shine

Winter tales that last forever
Summer rites that taste so sweet
Just another chance encounter
Of lines that meet
Of mimic needs

“Once again Martin Hall proves that he belongs in the same realm as mythological figures such as Brian Eno and David Bowie … With A Brief Summary Martin Hall molds the foundation of his own mausoleum, a place where you can come to recall fallen musical legends, but where there’s obviously also plenty of room for future generations to have a party.”

Information – Sophia Handler (May 18, 2018)
(Danish equivalent to The Independent)

Martin Hall: Vocals and instruments
The Vista Dome Ensemble: Orchestra
Else Marie Pade: Electronics
Efterklang: Instruments
Konsort: Choir
Claus Beck-Nielsen Memorial: Choir
Herbert Zeichner: Voice
Katja Andersson: Vocals
Biljana Stojkoska: Vocals
Marcel de Sade: Piano
Mikkel Meyer: Electronics
Miss Fish: Vocals
Othon: Piano
Linus Carlsen: Piano
Johnny Stage: Guitar, mandolin and glockenspiel
Henriette Groth: Piano
Ida Bach Jensen: String bass
Eskild Winding: Harmonium
Christian Skeel: Keyboards and string arrangements
Sara Wallevik: Violin
Iben Teilmann: Viola
Henrik Marstal: Cello
Ole Hansen: Keyboards, trumpet and french horn
Jens Albrectsen: Piano
Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen: Double bass
Jonas Johansen: Drums
Karoliina Koivisto: Violin
Hélianne Blais: Violin
Anette Slaatto: Viola
Gry Vester-Andersen: Cello
James Crabb: Accordion
Mimi Kjær: Piano
Dennis Jørgensen: Timpani
Mads Strandgaard: Piano
Thomas Li: Networks and treatments

Design: Kenneth Schultz
Photo: Maiken Kildegaard

A Brief Summary features remakes and alternative versions of material mainly selected from Hall’s 21st century catalogue.

The title was released as a double vinyl album, a digipak-cd and a music cassette – all formats in limited editions. Although the design and colour code remains the same on all three versions of the album, the front cover image varies, forming its own visual entirety when compiled as a whole.

Among the guests on the album you’ll find the Danish electronica pioneer Else Marie Pade (1924–2016), the 4AD band Efterklang, the British pianist Othon and the world famous jazz musician Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen (1946-2005). The latter performs on the partly re-recorded track ”Lesser Gods” that was released as a digital single on March 30th 2018.

The record is released with support from The Danish Arts Foundation, Koda, Danish Artist Union (DAF), DJBFA (Composer and Songwriters’ Production Pool and Koda’s Cultural Funds) and Danish Actors’ Association (DSF).