Have you ever felt pushed in the dirt when you least expected it? This song is for you!
Contrary to my usual way of working, i played all instruments myself, enjoying the sloppy sound. After all, the song is about somebody being dumped and being forced to be lonely, so i thought it was a great idea if i’d play all instruments myself. And i like this punk feel anyway.

‘Matters Won’t Remain’ is a soundtrack of nostalgia, a summer that was never there. Everything must go – matters won’t remain. It was published on a 1508 EP called ‘Oddities’ – four songs by Martin Draax

‘Sugar Skulls’ is Draax’ take on New Orleans funk. It plays with lessons learned from Bo Diddley, The Dixie Cups, Betty Harris but it adds flavours of 60’s and ‘70s punk to it. The lyric is funny yet thought provoking as it says something about our need to judge others. I felt extra inspired to make this song after seeing Penny Lane’s documentary on The Satanic Temple… A must-see, by the way!

lead vox: Nikki Marina
Drums and tambourine: Danielle Pijpers
Bas: Peter Hordijk
Trompet: Ruud ‘Trompie’ Kleiss
Tuba and Trombone: Simon Glas
Orgel and Piano: Jan Jaap Snellen
Guitars: Martin Draax
Backing Vocals: Flora Dolores & Ruud Kleiss
Handclaps: Martin and Danielle

Music written Martin Draax and Jan Jaap Snellen
Lyrics by Martin Draax
Horns Arrangement by Ruud Kleiss
Produced by Martin Draax
Mixed by Lars Blakenburg
Mastered by Kramer
Artwork by Martin Draax

‘Sugar Skulls’ was a song i wrote with keyboard player Jan Jaap Snellen. It was originally meant as a song for a children;’s programme but the director did not want it. So i rewrote the lyric to be a Halloween party song and recorded it with friends.

Cover for ‘Sugar Skulls’. These are one ‘Black Eyed Suze’ and one ‘Marigold’ who were not allowed to marry and consume their love in life. But, after death, nobody can say anything anymore: they marry on a halloween party.

For the videoclip for ‘Sugar Skulls’ i made a lot of drawings of people visiting the wedding party of one ‘Black Eyed Suze’ and one ‘Marigold’. The lyric is about our tendency to be prejudiced towards ‘other groups’ and to make life worse than needed for minorities.

So i thought it would be great if the guests at the party all were types other people ‘have an opinion about’. Of course, the song is related to Halloween and the Day Of The Dead, hence the Mardi Grass rhythm and the types we see. But in the end, the song is about how death makes us all equal and that no one is or knows really better than another.

‘Two Dreams At The Same Time’ is a lovesong dedicated to my partner Laura A Dima, who by the way did the make up and hair for this video.
The video features the musicians who played the actual music:
Lead Vocals: Rosie Stevens
Backing Vocals: Flora Dolores
Bass: Peter Hordijk
Violin: Eva Sofia
Cello: Oene van Geel
Drums: Danielle Pijpers
Keys: Jan Jaap Snellen

Suits tailored by Carola Jense-Wiede
Mixed by Lars Blakenburg
Mastered by Kramer
I played guitar, wrote the music, directed the clip, designed the clothes and did the rest.

Two Dreams At The Same Time

Two Dreams At The Same Time is the title of the newly released track (February 14, 2022). It features Rosie Stevens, who is known from the Dry Riverbed Trio, backed up by violin player Oene van Geel on cello, Eva Sofia (who is known for her solo project Veya) on violin, Jan Jaap Snellen and Peter Hordijk of Rumble Royale on keys and bass, Flora Dolores (the singer of Draax’ former band The Spinshots) on backing vocals and Danielle Pijpers of Comet Falls on drums. Martin Draax wrote the song and produced it, and plays guitar

Mixed by Lars Blakenburg en mastered by Kramer.

Laura A Dima did the make up for the clip, and Carola Jense-Wiede tailored the suits and dresses after Draax’ design.

‘Two Dreams’ is inspired by a quote by Martin’s partner Laura A Dima, who one day woke up asking ‘can you have two dreams at the same time?’. Dima and Draax have been working together ever since they met on a train station where Martin recognised in her the main character of his comics and animations for the past 21 years – and now they happened to be waiting for the same train. They developed the instagram soap artwork ‘Multiple Reality Disorder’ for which Martin wrote a song: Laura shines as all the characters in the videoclip that comes with the project. Draax also wrote the soundtrack ‘Music For Fingers’ to go with Dima’s installation ‘The Finger Rub Rug’, featuring 1300 replica’s of Draax’ fingers.

After writing down Dima’s question, Martin wrote the song dedicated to Dima. It combines unusual drum patterns with surf guitars and strings, and makes use of two different scales at the same time. The result is a song that refers to music from the Golden Era, but yet is something completely different. It’s up- and downtempo at the same time, it’s sharp and direct as well as dreamy and melancholic. ‘Two Dreams At The Same Time’ is the best of both worlds.

The Bass Benders

The Bass Benders is not a band, but ‘a way of working’ – to quote Robert Fripp when asked about King Crimson. As Draax writes his material, he asks befriended musicians to play parts. As draax keeps the overview of the production, musicians can focus on their contribution: they come to the studio one by one and there get the time and space they need to excel. The pool of musicians around Draax can all be considered ‘The Base Benders’.

Two Dreams at the Same Time is a Draax original sung by Rosie Stevens. Although i had the idea to make a cover with images subtracted from the videoclip i made for the song, the communication agent i asked to help me spread the word during the launch period said i should turn the singer into a comic version of herself. I listened to his advise and this is the result.

The title ‘Two Dreams at the Same Time’ comes from my partner Laura A Dima. She woke up one day and asked me ‘Can you have two dreams at the same time?’

I decided to make a lyric out of it because I felt attracted to the dilemma and I experience everyday life like a dream. So dreaming in your sleep is dreaming in a dream. But I also wanted to make a love song dedicated to my dear partner – so i made it about two people having the same kind of dream, completing each other. The singer is dreaming about the partner and the partner is dreaming about the singer, therefore creating each other’s reality.

What Are The Odds is a song about a girl trying to flee the dynamics of a distant small village with religious, traditional inhabitants. When she is found dead on the road in an attempt to escape to the city, the song posts the question of who killer her.

Music written by Ruud Kleiss and Martin Draax, lyrics by Martin Draax

These drawings tell the story of the song ‘What Are The Odds’

This is the videoclip for ‘Multiple Reality Disorder’.
Laura A Dima and I develop an ongoing photo soap opera on Instagram in which our main character suffers from ‘multiple Reality Disorder’. We follow the avatars that in real life could never meet because they live in different realities. Yet they formed a girlband and this is the video of their first hit.

Please watch until the credits as many talented people helped me with this.

I am proud of the clip and the music: i love the composition and the sound of the production, i love it that you can stop the video at any moment and you’ll have a key image with a lot of expressiveness.

credits

Multiple Reality Disorder was the first song I wrote after I quit my band the Spinshots. I wrote it for the project ‘he Identity Machinery’ which is a collaboration with Laura A Dima, who plays a woman suffering from ‘MRD’. Although she has become somebody else in every reality (her story starts with a schoolgirl and we follow all her possible futures) for the clip of this song, the different ‘avatars’ came together and formed a band.

The idea of a girlband consisting of avatars of the same base identity needed a clip and a song. Laura and i both like early punk rock so it seemed great if the song clearly had references to that. Yes, New York Dolls, Undertones, Buzzcocks, Stiff Little Fingers, and you name them.

this is the cover for my single ‘Multiple Reality Disorder‘ – ironically coined ‘The Most Urgent Pop Song In History’.

To know more about the project, either look at my music department or at the tag ‘The Identity Machinery’ on Instagram.

Angels Never Stay is a song about the inevitability of seperation from you loved ones.
I used a high speed camera to do this and Laura A Dima danced a choreography on which we practiced for three days: 23 seconds were to be stretched to 5.23 – so you can imagine how precise she had to do the movements! One second late would mean more than 30 seconds late in the end result!

Because the clip has no credits, I put them here:

Written, arranged and produced by Martin Draax
Flora Dolores: Lead Vocals
Daniëlle Pijpers: Drums
Peter Hordijk: Bass
Martin Draax: backing vocals, guitars, noises, one finger organ
Janfie van Strien: Clarinet, Bariton sax
Gijs Levelt: Trumpet
Jan Jaap Snellen: Keys
Wendy van Wilgenburg: Cello
Regina Yap: Percussion
Mixed by Lars Blakenburg, Mastered by Kramer

Special thanks: Jan Jaap Snellen and Lars Blakenburg

‘Angels never Stay’ is about the unfortunate fact that we can never stay together forever, however much we love each other and however much don’t want to be without the other. Our reality is temporarily.

‘Pigeons & people’ is a song in which I tried to capture the dynamics of Amsterdam, the city I have always loved and learned to hate.

It was hard for me to grand my own long cherished wish to write a good song about the city i am obsessed with – and my great example is Ray Davies who wrote all those fantastic songs about London – so what can poor boy do? For a long time, I loved Amsterdam so much, that I did not really have a problem. And ‘a problem’ is needed for a good story. But over the years I became more unhappy with the results of the widely and warmly embraced politics of free market morality; Amsterdam was not about people’s initiatives any longer. The city was so cool that it was recognised as a huge money maker. In stead of a hodgepodge of real and various people with their initiatives, it became a monocultural place to host mass-tourists, consumers, criminals, real estate owners and brand marketeers. We sold our soul.

The videoclip celebrates the last free minds – the last people to keep Amsterdam ‘the Magic Centre’ it once was so obviously. It’s inspired by Billy Wilder ‘s ‘Menschen Am Sonntag’ from 1930.

One of my all time heroes is Ray Davies, singer and song writer for the Kinks. He sings about London in many of his songs and i always wanted to write a song about Amsterdam. But there were 3 complications: one is the Dutch street names that sound ugly in an English song, the second is the risk for ‘campy, or false sentiments’ which i tried to avoid, however much i like sentimental music, and the third is: i have always been so much in love with Amsterdam that i did not really have a problem to write about.

Things changed in the 90’s and 2000’s, with the liberalisation of social renting houses, with general politics that favoured the rich. By 2019, when i wrote this song, there was hardly any squatted house left. Culturally the city became way more shallow, cleaner, less free minded and commercial concepts wan over artistic ideas. It seemed to me the city was rebuild in an amusement park for consumers and tourists, and everything that was foreign, weird, artistic or valuable beyond what money can express seemed to be pushed out.

In Pigeons & People, I wonder about what is left of that city with its attractive dangers, of the free people that designed their own lives and sub cultures to live, of the cultural brewing pot rather than a ground for people who ‘had a job and could afford a house’. Amsterdam used to be called ‘The Magic Centre’ in the 60’s and early 70’s – but what of it is left and where to find it?

This is the cover for my single ‘Pigeons & People’, a song about Amsterdam, the city I live in, love and have learned to hate.

Pigeons & People is my first single in the series ‘multiple Reality disorder. The idea of the album is that it is going to be an eclectic bunch of singles in which I can record and produce whatever I want with who ever I want (and wants to work with me of course).

This is a song about the dynamics of Amsterdam, the city where I live, the town that I love and learned to hate.
Edwin Slothouber: Drums
Wrecker Walley: Backings
Floor van Dijck: Backings
Janfie van Strien: Clarinet
Jan Jaap Snellen: organs
Martin Draax: Lead vox, guitars, sample editing, bass, one finger organ

Written and arranged, produced by Martin Draax
Mixed by Lars Blakenburg
Recorded at Blackbird studio Zaandam
Mastered by Kramer
Special thanks: Jan Jaap Snellen and Lars Blakenburg

see the video here

‘Exotic Fingers’ is the name of this music and clip. It is a promotional videoclip for Laura A Dima’s ‘The Finger Rub Rug’ in which she caster 1300 replicas of my fingers and made a single bed from them. She made an installation in which The Finger Rub Rug was in the middle of a designated white room, with a heat blanket beneath it and a haptic speaker playing a heart beat.

People were left alone in the room and could do what they liked: if they would lie on the Rug, they’d hear my music coming from four sides: one side had playful sounds, an other side had scary sounds, one resembled ‘nature’ and another on seemed erotic. All music was composed on the rhythm of the heartbeat you felt pulsing in your chest. This increased the emotional effect and positioned the questions Laura wanted to provoke with her work.

To promote the exhibition, Laura had four one-minute films shot. Video is shot by Fabian Landweert, I edited the rushes to four trailers with excerpts of my music. Oh and I did the titles 😉

‘Music For Fingers’ was written as a quadrophonic soundtrack with five speakers. It had 4 ‘atmospheres’ coming from the directions where the speakers were positioned and a fifth, ‘haptic’ speaker under the artwork ‘The Finger Rub Rug’ by Laura A Dima.

The Finger Rub Rug was an art installation: A rug the size of a single bed, having 1300 replicas of my fingers was put in a white room where visitors were allowed one by one. People were instructed they could do what they wanted in the room; there were no cameras, you were truly on your own. People who dared to lie down on the mat would feel an extra heart in their chest (the fifth speaker was positioned below the mat.)

The music i wrote for The Finger Rub Rug was having four atmospheres: you could either concentrate on the scary part, the witty part, the harmonic, natural part or the erotic part. I was inspired by the look of the fingers and thought of what you can do, with fingers. We think it is our brain that made us who and where we are, but fingers pull triggers. Fingers touch to find out if something is real. Fingers can strangle and caress.

So the ‘Exotica’ style soundtrack of course is inspired by the works of Danny Martin and Les Baxter. To make it publicly available, i made a stereo version of the soundtrack and presented the different ‘islands’ (atmospheric tracks with an identity of their own within the soundtrack that emerge out of the waves of the sound ocean) s seperate songs. enjoy!

‘Tentacles is part of the music I wrote for Laura A Dima’s The Finger Rub Rug’.

You can hear the complete soundtrack here.

‘Playful Fingers’ was made as part of a soundtrack for an artwork by Laura A Dima. Full album here.

‘Exotic Fingers’ was written for an artwork by Laura A Dima – as part of the soundtrack. On spotify you can find the stereo version of the -originally quadrophonic- soundtrack as a whole. just type my name and ‘Music For Fingers’

‘Tentacles’ is the name of this music and clip. It is a promotional videoclip for Laura A Dima’s ‘The Finger Rub Rug’ in which she caster 1300 replicas of my fingers and made a single bed from them. She made an installation in which The Finger Rub Rug was in the middle of a designated white room, with a heat blanket beneath it and a haptic speaker playing a heart beat.

People were left alone in the room and could do what they liked: if they would lie on the Rug, they’d hear my music coming from four sides: one side had playful sounds, an other side had scary sounds, one resembled ‘nature’ and another on seemed erotic. All music was composed on the rhythm of the heartbeat you felt pulsing in your chest. This increased the emotional effect and positioned the questions Laura wanted to provoke with her work.

To promote the exhibition, Laura had four one-minute films shot. Video is shot by Fabian Landweert, I edited the rushes to four trailers with excerpts of my music. Oh and I did the titles 😉

‘Skilled Fingers’, ‘Playful Fingers’, ‘Exotic Fingers’ and ‘Tentacles’ are implemented in the OST i made for Laura A Dima’s The Finger Rub Rug. A stereo version can be heard Music For Fingers by Martin Draax“>here.

‘Playful Fingers’ is the name of this music and clip. It is a promotional videoclip for Laura A Dima’s ‘The Finger Rub Rug’ in which she caster 1300 replicas of my fingers and made a single bed from them. She made an installation in which The Finger Rub Rug was in the middle of a designated white room, with a heat blanket beneath it and a haptic speaker playing a heart beat.

People were left alone in the room and could do what they liked: if they would lie on the Rug, they’d hear my music coming from four sides: one side had playful sounds, an other side had scary sounds, one resembled ‘nature’ and another on seemed erotic. All music was composed on the rhythm of the heartbeat you felt pulsing in your chest. This increased the emotional effect and positioned the questions Laura wanted to provoke with her work.

To promote the exhibition, Laura had four one-minute films shot. Video is shot by Fabian Landweert, I edited the rushes to four trailers with excerpts of my music. Oh and I did the titles 😉

‘Tentacles’ is the name of this music and clip. It is a promotional videoclip for Laura A Dima’s ‘The Finger Rub Rug’ in which she caster 1300 replicas of my fingers and made a single bed from them. She made an installation in which The Finger Rub Rug was in the middle of a designated white room, with a heat blanket beneath it and a haptic speaker playing a heart beat.

People were left alone in the room and could do what they liked: if they would lie on the Rug, they’d hear my music coming from four sides: one side had playful sounds, an other side had scary sounds, one resembled ‘nature’ and another on seemed erotic. All music was composed on the rhythm of the heartbeat you felt pulsing in your chest. This increased the emotional effect and positioned the questions Laura wanted to provoke with her work.

To promote the exhibition, Laura had four one-minute films shot. Video is shot by Fabian Landsweerd, I edited the rushes to four trailers with excerpts of my music. Oh and I did the titles 😉

‘Skilled Fingers’ is the name of this music and clip. It is a promotional videoclip for Laura A Dima’s ‘The Finger Rub Rug’ in which she caster 1300 replicas of my fingers and made a single bed from them. She made an installation in which The Finger Rub Rug was in the middle of a designated white room, with a heat blanket beneath it and a haptic speaker playing a heart beat.

People were left alone in the room and could do what they liked: if they would lie on the Rug, they’d hear my music coming from four sides: one side had playful sounds, an other side had scary sounds, one resembled ‘nature’ and another on seemed erotic. All music was composed on the rhythm of the heartbeat you felt pulsing in your chest. This increased the emotional effect and positioned the questions Laura wanted to provoke with her work.

To promote the exhibition, Laura had four one-minute films shot. Video is shot by Fabian Landweert, I edited the rushes to four trailers with excerpts of my music. Oh and I did the titles 😉

The artwork you see on the cover of this album is ‘The Finger Rub Rug’, made by my girlfriend Laura A Dima. It consists of 1300 replica’s of my fingers and are placed as a ‘single bed’ in a designated white room. Under the mat that hosts the fingers is a warming element and a haptic speaker giving the work a heartbeat.

Laura asked me to compose music to experience the artwork with and we decided on a quadrophonic piece with 4 elements coming from four speakers. So although one side was more scary, another more humorous, the others more ‘erotic’ and ‘exotic’, together they’d make one composition, fitting to the heartbeat.

People who dared to lie down on the Finger Rub Rug, would feel an extra heartbeat in their chest, warmth coming from the fingers and hear the ‘exotica’ soundtrack from 4 directions. One of the (many) good aspects of this artwork is that you were in this room on your own, which gave a completely different dynamic than being alone in, say, your living room. This was a very good way to contemplate and reflect on things.

So since ‘Music for Fingers’ is an album having the full composition brought back to stereo and 7 outtakes, using a photo of the artwork seemed to provide the best cover.

Maybe there is another person in this world who likes this: some demos i made – most songs never made it to an end result on an album. Ugly sounds with fake drums and boxed horn sections. Demos made at home, drinking too much coffee, making it too late each time. But i like the compositions and the arrangements, i like the intentions. i like the potential. So who knows, if there is somebody in this world who hears the quality – it’s for you!

Cover for the bandcamp album ‘Demos’.
This is actually a drawing I made for my first website – everything in flash, full of animation. That side was like a game: you were in space with the Designdevil (me) and you certainly would get lost. But now I could use this specific picture for the albumcover – demos of songs from the ole’ days.