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The ascendant Manchester group chat community building, political songwriting and studio smarts ahead of their debut EP’s release later this week. |
Taking influence from the indie experimentalism of London’s Windmill scene and channeling that sonic curiosity within Manchester’s resurgent and nurturing musical underground, Martial Arts feel primed for a sharp ascent. They’ve been gigging relentlessly for more than three years and generated some real word-of-mouth hype through their frenetic live shows and a trio of singles in 2024. It is undeniable, though, that they’ve taken a big step forwards over the last year. |
That is evidenced in their excellent debut EP ‘From The Burn Off’, which came out last week on 5dB later this week. Recorded with Craig Silvey and Dani Bennett Sprag, their CVs combining to mention basically every worthwhile guitar band of the last twenty years, the record channels the energy of the live shows whilst flexing the sonic refinement that the band have been through over the years. It disguises deeply meaningful songs with infectious and emo-inflected guitars, creating a body of work that is a joyous passive listen but offers so much more when you dig further into it. Ahead of release, they have been busy with sold out shows in Manchester and London, a particularly buzzy stint at The Great Escape and a run of shows on the continent, including supporting long-term HOH favourites Lime Garden. |
Just before jetting off, lead singer Jim Marson and bassist Robbie Beale joined me to chat about it all. |
How would you compare the EP to the music that you’ve put out in the past? How many of the initial influences that you bonded over are still present? |
Jim: Early on, I think we did the classic thing of trying to be as impactful and as loud as possible. That led into us all thrashing our guitars without too much consideration. We were going for that punky impact. Since we’ve been in the studio with Craig Silvey and Dani Bennett Spragg, it’s all a little bit more considered. Rather than smacking pedals on to get some dynamic impact, we’re actually playing our instruments a little bit more. It’s a bit more measured. I remember ‘Drunk Tank Pink’, ‘Dogrel’ and ‘Bright Green Fields’ being three albums that we bonded over. That sort of 2019-ish wave of bands was something we all really liked. There’s been a natural progression and we’ve moved on to different records, but those are sort of the touching posts that we come back to. |
Robbie: When we were in the studio, Craig and Dani would say like, “How many parts of these songs are you all playing 16th notes really quickly at the same time on all the different instruments, even the bass?” It turns out when you put that on record it sounds really muddy! It can be cool, obviously, creating a wall of sound. I think we’ve retained the weight of those parts but without the thrashing about in a way. We’ve also retained the song structures being a little leftfield, we like to make sections sound different to one another but still form something cohesive. It’s been a nice evolution to be part of. |
How did you find the recording process? |
Jim: Moments like that, when you get into a studio with someone whose records you’ve grown up with and you get to not only work with them but also play around and just enjoy yourself, that’s almost the whole point of doing this. And then at the end of it you’ve got this thing that sounds the best it ever has and has the most clarity too. It was a great experience, it was a proper bubble for a week. It was a nice studio, great producers, the label really looked after us. Then you go back to Manchester and you’re in the office and it’s winter and you have to just sit on the record while you do all the things that make records actually happen… |
Robbie: Yeah, the studio was an amazing experience but then that winter of just waiting and wanting it to happen less so. But now it’s happening again and it’s so exciting. A massive learning experience and really fun. |
Jim: I think the main thing we learned was the amount of decisions that have to be made between five people. The artwork was the big one. I think we’ve ended up with the best but getting there was tricky. It was a lot of arguing and then kissing and making up. We’re a democracy. |
Has that process changed the way that your songs will be written moving forward, do you think? |
Jim: We used to spend quite a lot of time on tunes, almost to write them to completion. Since we recorded, I think we’ve realised that a producer’s influence is not to be underestimated. We’ve kind of been writing to a point where everything is still malleable, you know? |
Robbie: I think that’s the process that we have to do. There were so many tracks on the EP that we thought were finished and then you get into the studio and realise that they definitely weren’t. It was scary, but it allows you to be really creative. The opener of the EP, ‘The Seeds’, the first minute of that track is just Jim and his guitar. It used to have drums, bass and other guitars and that was all stripped away. Me and Jack were dead against that but now we love it, it opens the EP in such a cool way. That song had existed since before I joined the band and changed so many times, but it found its final form in the studio. |
How have you found bringing those new and evolved songs into a live environment? |
Jim: When we first started, the whole set would kind of bleed between the tunes and you’d have these little interludes. Honestly, it was mostly to cover up because we have so many different tunings across the songs. While we were figuring out the EP, we kind of lost that because we were focused on trying out which songs work as openers and working out what the live reaction was like. We’ve sort of brought that back now, which I quite like. I like it being 35 minutes of continual, very intention-driven live music. It’s really fun. |
Robbie: We spent a lot of time on the track listing for the EP, and it’s interesting because it all changes again in a live setting. ‘Too Much Fun’ opens the B-side of the EP in a really immediate way but it opens our live set, whereas ‘The Seeds’ takes more of a centre piece role within the set but opens the EP. It’s also just been really fun to have put out the first couple of singles and to see people in the crowd who know the tunes. |
On ‘Too Much Fun’, I love that you could just enjoy that for being super catchy and fun but there’s loads of meaning built in if you scratch beneath. Is that sort of disguised deeper meaning something that stimulates you as songwriters? |
Jim: I think it’s probably a result of doing music first and the lyrics afterwards. When you approach music like that, the impact that hits people first is the emotive feeling from the music. I’ve always said that good writing is something that can be hyperpersonal to you but could be interpreted completely differently by somebody else. Ambiguous but not to a point where it means nothing. When we first started we were listening to a lot of Fontaines D.C and Black Country, New Road and that whole era of bands. It felt like everyone was trying to out-poet each other, everything was so beautifully written. I think guitar music is now reverting back to going for feeling rather than smarts. |
There’s quite a lot of political writing on the record, is that something that comes naturally to you? |
Jim: I think political writing is quite a difficult thing. Sometimes you can almost write from a place of fear and feeling a need to cover all bases. I think that’s a trap I’ve probably fallen into in the past. We don’t speak on stage really because I find it quite anxiety-inducing, so I think the writing allows us to share what we believe. We do our own things on the side that we enjoy doing and feel are necessary to do. |
Robbie: I think there’s different ways of looking at what is political. I think what the band stands for and what all of us care about is building a sense of community. I often think that can achieve a lot more good for the world, that’s really where change happens. |
Jim: Politics is a big part of the band and something we’ll continue writing about. The specific politics of this EP are centred around acknowledgement and self-reflection. It’s so easy to get caught up complaining about your own situation but ultimately just getting to live in the UK is such a crazy gift. I think acknowledging that is a good place for us to start on this early record. |
You have members from all over the country, but it feels like being from Manchester is quite a big part of your identity as a band. Is that fair? |
Jim: Yeah definitely. Over the last year we’ve been involved with the small group of artists that started No Band Is An Island. We were so aware of how great the bands were in Manchester and felt it was necessary to put it in the hands of the bands and their friends, essentially. It felt like a really natural thing to run it as a non-profit organisation. Ultimately, we just wanted to show how much great music there is here at the minute. I think it’s working. When you go to a No Band night it feels like a festival, there’s a really nice spirit in the room. One of the main reasons we’re involved is because we just want one night every couple of months to get all of the bands together rather than trying to force your own way through. |
Rob: If we weren’t in the band we’d be putting on gigs and going to gigs all the time – a lot of us were doing that kind of thing way before we played in bands. It’s just really nice to be fans of your mates as well. |
Anything you want to add before we wrap? |
Jim: Listen to Holly Head! Listen to Shaking Hand! Listen to Wyatt! |
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