London, LSE, 9 Nov 1978

25 Nov 1978
Record Mirror
Susan Kluth
John Martyn
London LSE

NOTHING STUNNINGLY new from John Martyn t'other day; but then he's an artist whose folk-jazz-ballad-electronic fusions have run off the mainstream at a timeless tangent. Although a new album is projected for next spring, it was the year-old One World and a few of its predecessors that provided the basis for the gig for obviously hardcore fans. It would be nice (if impossible) commercially to see him packing the Rainbow, but a great deal better emotionally to find him packing the LSE Old Theatre.

John Martyn plays solo onstage, self and guitar surrounded by a barricade of knobs and pedals, heartbeat loops and echoplex spanning out many of his tidily mysterious songs, sung in daintily lugubrious fashion. He's also but natch a very good blueish acoustic guitarist - one of the few survivors of the Great British Blues tradition, would you but know it. Hence One World (that song) sliding with almost religious grace like a slowed down film of an international gymnast at work, and the most extrovert and funky 'Zertain Zurprise'.

Inevitably, with so much gadgetry around there has to be quite a bit of order and discipline in the set. But at the same time, John Martyn keeps it real. SUSAN KLUTH

sitenotes:
This review was published in Record Mirror of 25 November 1978. Material provided by Rob Jarvis.