Martin Rev

To Live (File Thirteen)
by Lex Marburger

Seeing as how I really didn’t like the last Suicide album, I didn’t have much hope for 50%-er Martin Rev‘s latest release, To Live. And at first, I couldn’t see much in these songs: Endless repetitions of sampled guitar & drums, reverbed to death along with the vocals, all of which is occasionally broken up with Martin tweaking out a delay pedal.

But once I settled into it, the music wasn’t half bad. I could see the album as (possibly) a representation of a live show. One man on stage, with a computer and an effects rack, at the far end of a long, concrete tunnel, doing his best to provoke and entertain. Or it could just be a bad album. But at least it made me stop and consider the alternative.
(PO Box 804868 Chicago, IL 60680)