DJ Martin Fulb kept true to his stage name “MartyParty” Friday night, blasting fans with waves of bass for more than two hours to cap off his first headline tour at The Varsity Theatre in a dance-crazed revelry.
The South African native altered new and old hits, mellowing out or intensifying his tracks in a marathon of melodic synths, drops and explosions. MartyParty played and mixed pieces from his collaborations with PANTyRAiD, his newly released album, “Six Shots of Jameson,” as well as samples from other artists.
As at all his shows, Marty plays his music without headphones, which he said allows him to configure this wildly-spontaneous performance. Headphones allow DJs to preview music they plan on adding into their performance, but Marty passes on them, previewing music out loud if need be.
“I just set it up, my entire set, in such a way that – all the tracks and all the pieces and all the acapelas – I just know it so well, I don’t need to preview anything,” he explained. “It’s just a whole new way of doing it.”
But playing without headphones also allows Marty more physical liberation.
“What it allows me to do is be very mobile,” Marty said. “To be able to jump around and run around. I’m not harnessed in any way to the mixer.”
And he used this opportunity to its fullest potential. Each sound – no matter how abstract – compelled some excitedly perfect reaction from Marty. As womps banged out of speakers, he quickly leapt up and down, flapping his hands like an angry bird, while raunchy wobbles caused him to shake his backside as he cringed in satisfaction toward the selections on his computer. He continually swung his arms like clock pendulums as the bass beaded back and forth and often stretched his arms, pointing to the ceiling as songs speedily climbed to a pinnacle.
Marty said he sees this as “performing the music,” similar to how non-DJ bands with great stage presence perform.
“I like to see any performer who gets into the music and who makes a show out of it,” Marty said. “What I don’t like is what I see at Ultra [music festival]. The classic old DJ style with the just stand there with their hands in the air rubbish.”
Marty explained feeling out his audience plays a large part in allowing him to compose his instinctive performances.
“It’s always different, every city in America’s different,” he said. “Because I do my own style of spontaneous DJ-ing, I really watch the evening progress. I peek out and have a look at the people and the vibe.”
With 110 songs in his set, Marty said he could take a show in any direction the crowd is feeling, from intense hard tones to pretty melodic impressions. He explained he believes maintaining variety is key to enticing today’s electronic-dance audiences – specifically mixing genres in a seamless manner.
“We’re at a dawn of a new age in DJ-ing,” he said. “You can’t just be a dubstep producer or a dubstep DJ, you can’t just be a hip-hop producer or a hip-hop DJ, you can’t just be a glitch-hock DJ. You have to cross genres.”
Marty explained this change stems largely from the availability of music to the masses. Today’s audiences have far more ways to obtain and learn about the music they’re interested in than previously. In addition, DJs have fewer constraints and more resources to work with.
“I think that’s the most exciting part of music both in production and in live shows,” he said “We as an audience and as a community of producers have pushed [electronic music] to this point where categories and genres have just fallen away.”
Marty’s self-named “Purple” genre pursues this idea by blending styles, placing heavy emphasis on hip-hop, r&b and dubstep.
“It’s a very melodical music,” he explained. “It’s about making multiple melodies work together in a seamless way to progress to a crescendo, and then re-evolve again and de-construct.”
He explained his most recent album emulates these ideas. A compilation of songs Marty wrote over the past six years of touring, “Six Shots of Jameson” released at the end of January, and shares names with Marty’s tour, the “Six Shots tour”. Each track represents a different genre and tone, but they all share a certain consistency, Marty said.
“It represents the different flavors of the [Purple] genre,” he said. “It’s got a very soulful feel to it . . . My music, you can see from my album, comes from a very optimistic, happy place, more like a gospel chord set than anything else.”
Friday night, his audience got to taste each flavor. As Marty shook and hopped his way through each track, fans responded accordingly, throwing hands, leaping up and down and even climbing the stage railing before being shooed off by the venue staff. Jumping and flexing his arms at long bass drones and flailing his limbs at various lasers, Marty ended the night as sweaty and worn out as his front-row fans,
“Make your own music!” Marty shouted as he keyed up his last song of the night. “I started making my own music five years ago!”
To end the show, Marty snapped a picture with the entire crowd.
“It’s been a real insane experience,” Marty said. “I’ve driven almost 11,000 miles and I still have to drive home to New York . . . People have really responded. I couldn’t be more happy.”
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Contact Austen Krantz at [email protected]