ST.MARTiiNS
OTR DUNDEE 24 - NOVEMBER - MARRYAT HALL
From the moment Katie Lynch and Mark Johnston met aged 12, they have been inseparable. They didn’t know where it would lead, but they knew that the road ahead of them would lead somewhere. It had to.
An awkward MSN message, those elucidating teenage and university years and a couple of experimental projects later, Kate and Mark are still travelling but have found comfort in their skins as ST.MARTiiNS.
And in a wonderful piece of serendipity, as their home town of Dundee emerges as a rejuvenated cultural hotspot, ST.MARTiiNS emerge as one of Scotland’s most exciting and intriguing new bands.
For them, music is an island. Their island. Somewhere to escape to. Like the island of St. Maarten which (at least in part) explains their name. “We like language and the way words sound, and we like to play with that” says Katie about their name and lyrics.
With influences as disparate as The Cure, Bombay Bicycle Club, Grizzly Bear, The Cocteau Twins, Clairo and Crowded House is hard to put their music in a convenient box. Their songs can be simultaneously sparse but rich, layered and simple and it’s often the space between the notes that are most important. Mark plays his guitar like an orchestra, pulling from it sounds that make his style as distinctive as Katie’s gossamer vocals (for which her theatre background may have something answer for). Electronica, pop, jazz, alternative, sunny, cloudy...it’s mood music, whatever your mood. But whatever it is, it’s arresting.