Martial Canterel
Martial Canterel is the solo project of Brooklyn-based musician Sean McBride (who also performs as half of the duo Xeno & Oaklander). He began under the moniker Moravagine before he started releasing limited edition cassettes and playing Brooklyn dives as Martial Canterel in 2002. Crafting his electronic sound in a peculiar intersection between avant-garde and pop, Martial Canterel merges the influences of the first wave of relatively unknown minimal electronic bands from northern Europe with seminal industrial noise bands such as Throbbing Gristle and SPK while simultaneously giving nods to the smoothly stylish song craft of early British New Wave. Martial Canterel records and performs using analogue synthesizers, sequencers, and drum machines exclusively, providing a visceral kick best felt on the dance floor, amidst a flurry of flesh in motion. The mastery of his composition technique, along with a unique talent for melodies, and coupled with vocals and lyrics that reflect the pitfalls and pleasures of our age, McBride produces gems of extreme noise pop, making use of all its unexpected ingredients.
Having put out releases on numerous labels including Xanten, Genetic Music, Tarantulla Productions, Electric Voice Records, and Pieter Schoolweth’s legendary Wierd Records, Martial Canterel’s dark and danceable anthems have flooded North America and Europe, garnering both critical acclaim and a rapidly growing ardent fan base. Dais, having recognized the sheer talent and genius of McBride’s vast creative output, picked up Martial Canterel for his LP Gyors, Lassù in 2014. This release marked an important milestone in McBride’s musical evolution, because it progressed the project beyond the cages of “minimal synth” by embracing its noisier qualities with a renewed urgency. With only Serge and Roland 100 modular systems at his disposal, McBride flushed out the entire session in one take, rendering sine waves into walls of guitar-like noise while stretching out and liquefying what were once very precise staccato synth arpeggios into layers of violent bliss.
In 2017, Martial Canterel returned to Dais with Lost At Sea, which explored the conceptual nature ofacademic Donna Haraway’s pre-civilized theories of human neglect after the "astralization". Re-evaluating the political strife and social unrest in historical locations, Lost At Sea found McBride delving deeper into political and geological reference points, creating symbolic representations using mechanised percussion, white noise and various sine waves.
