Martyn: Biography, Discography and More | EDM Encyclopedia

Introduction

Martyn van der Haar, known professionally simply as Martyn, is a Dutch electronic music producer and DJ with a distinct history rooted in the South East London bass music scene. Born in Eindhoven, Netherlands, his trajectory took a pivotal turn when he relocated to the United Kingdom. Prior to establishing himself as a solo artist heavily associated with dubstep, he developed his foundational skills in the Dutch drum and bass community. This early immersion in faster tempos provided him with a technical foundation. When he transitioned to producing slower, bass-heavy music, he retained an intricate approach to rhythm.

Immersing himself in the vibrant South London club environment, he absorbed the emerging sounds of the era while establishing his own distinct voice. In 2005, Martyn partnered with visual artist Erosie to launch the 3024 record label. This imprint served as a dedicated platform for his own sonic explorations, allowing him to bypass traditional label structures and release music on his own terms. The label quickly garnered attention for bridging the gap between various strands of underground dance music, fostering a community around his specific curation.

Beyond his studio productions, Martyn developed a reputation as a versatile DJ capable of weaving together disparate styles. His skills behind the decks led to an invitation to contribute to the established Fabric mix series. His approach to mixing emphasizes smooth transitions and unexpected pairings, blending techno, garage, and drum and bass elements into a cohesive, flowing narrative. The transition from the Netherlands to the UK and subsequently to the United States and Germany provided him with a broad perspective on club culture. He operates at the intersection of multiple electronic music movements, utilizing his global experiences to inform his studio output and label curation.

Genre and Style

Martyn approaches electronic music by deliberately blurring the boundaries between specific subgenres. Rather than adhering strictly to the conventional formulas of dubstep, he integrates the syncopated percussion of UK garage and the relentless drive of European techno into his tracks. His productions utilize the half-time rhythms associated with early bass music but infuse them with dense, polyrhythmic drum programming and intricate textural layers: a sound that feels simultaneously heavyweight and highly detailed.

The dubstep Sound

A defining characteristic of his style is his manipulation of low frequencies and spatial dynamics. He constructs deep, rolling sub-bass lines that anchor his tracks, while using precise synthesis to create atmospheric pads and sharp, metallic percussion. This contrast between low-end weight and crisp high-frequency details gives his music a distinct sense of depth. He avoids relying on aggressive mid-range growls, opting instead for a more hypnotic, pulsating approach that prioritizes rhythmic complexity.

Over the course of his career, his sound has continuously evolved while maintaining a core focus on dance floor functionality. His later work leans heavily into four-to-the-floor structures, though the ghostly echoes of two-step garage and broken beat remain ever-present in his groove. He programs his patterns to lock into a hypnotic flow, using subtle shifts in percussion to maintain momentum over long track durations. By fusing the mechanical precision of techno with the skittering, bass-heavy swing of UK soundsystem culture, Martyn cultivates a distinct sonic footprint. His methodology relies on careful sound design and arrangement, ensuring that each element serves a specific purpose within the mix. This precise balance allows his tracks to function equally well in an introspective listening session as they do on a massive club soundsystem, utilizing heavy use of reverb and delay on percussive hits to place sounds in a three-dimensional environment.

Key Releases

Martyn has built an extensive and varied discography spanning full-length albums, extended plays, and singles. His debut long-player, Great Lengths (2009), introduced his unique fusion of techno and dubstep to a wider audience, establishing him as a formidable force outside traditional genre constraints. He followed this up with Ghosts (2012), an album that pushed his sound into darker, more introspective territories while increasing the tempo and structural complexity. In 2014, he released The Air Between Words, further refining his blend of vocal samples and intricate beat construction across a sprawling tracklist. His most recent full-length album, Automatic (2023), marked a return to his own 3024 imprint, showcasing a renewed focus on raw, hardware-driven techno frameworks.

• Great Lengths
• Ghosts
• The Air Between Words
• Automatic
• Shadowcasting

Discography Highlights

Beyond his albums, his extended plays highlight the evolution of his club-focused EDM sound. The Shadowcasting EP (2008) provided an early blueprint of his cross-genre approach. He delivered the Broken EP (2009), showcasing his knack for combining heavy low-end with precise drum programming. The Left Hander EP (2013) arrived shortly before his third album, offering a concise exploration of his syncopated rhythmic sensibilities and atmospheric synthesizer work.

His singles output demonstrates his continuous presence in the dance music ecosystem, often acting as direct companions to his longer projects. He introduced his signature style on the 2007 single Suburban / Savannah, a release that caught the attention of many prominent DJs. Years later, he continued to explore rhythmic fusion on the 2018 single Really Want, which stripped back his sound to focus on pure percussive energy and dance floor utility.

Each of these projects captures a specific era of his production development, highlighting a consistent commitment to exploring the intersections of tempo, bass weight, and spatial sound design. By moving through various tempos and rhythmic structures across these records, his complete body of work serves as a detailed map of UK-influenced bass music’s evolution over a sixteen-year period. The focus always remains on forward momentum and intricate sonic architecture.

Famous Tracks

Martyn approaches dubstep and electronic club music from SE with a rhythmic fluidity that separates his work from standard genre templates. Instead of relying on predictable half-step drops, he builds his studio output around rolling percussive patterns that draw heavy influence from Detroit techno, classic garage, and his earlier drum and bass productions. He structures his tracks to emphasize linear progression, allowing basslines and synthesizer melodies to evolve steadily rather than repeating static loops. This gives his tracks a distinct sense of forward motion, pulling the listener through the arrangement rather than locking them into a rigid grid.

His production style features a precise balance between organic rhythmic elements and digital sound design. He frequently uses sharp, syncopated hi-hats and crisp snares to slice through heavy sub-bass, creating a polyrhythmic effect that keeps the momentum driving forward. He treats the low-end frequencies as a dynamic tool, letting the bass shift in tone and texture to interact with the drum patterns above it. This method prevents the low end from becoming a static drone.

Synth work plays a critical role in his overall sound. He layers warm, atmospheric chords over rigid drum sequences, providing a melodic counterweight to the mechanical pressure of the percussion. This contrast prevents his music from feeling purely functional, offering a listening experience that works outside the club environment. By refusing to restrict his sound to a single tempo range, his releases consistently challenge the boundaries between dubstep, broken beat, and techno.

Live Performances

Martyn approaches live performances with a highly technical mindset, utilizing a hybrid setup that blends traditional DJ mixing with live hardware synthesis. Rather than simply playing back studio tracks, he uses drum machines and analog sequencers to manipulate his tracks in real time. This method allows him to strip down his studio productions to their core elements and rebuild them on stage, adding an element of improvisation that makes each set unique to the specific venue and crowd. He controls the filters and envelopes manually, giving the hardware an active role in shaping the direction of the performance.

Notable Shows

When performing DJ sets, he relies on a multi-deck configuration to create dense, layered mixes. He frequently blends dubstep, techno, and house within a single performance, focusing on long, gradual transitions rather than abrupt switches. This technique requires precise control over EQs and phrasing, allowing him to loop specific percussive elements from one track while slowly introducing the bassline of another. The resulting sets maintain a continuous flow, bridging different tempos and styles without losing the energy on the floor.

His stage presence remains focused entirely on the equipment, prioritizing the sonic output over visual spectacle. He pays close attention to the acoustics of the space, adjusting his low-end frequencies to ensure the physical impact of the bass translates properly through the club system. By treating his live sets as an extension of his studio practice, he delivers performances that highlight the structural complexity of his music.

Why They Matter

Martyn matters within the electronic music landscape because he actively dismantled the rigid tempo restrictions that once defined specific club genres. By bringing the syncopation of drum and bass into the slower, heavier framework of dubstep, he proved that club music could remain physically impacting without relying on aggressive, mid-range frequencies. His focus on rhythmic complexity offered a cerebral alternative to the mainstream evolution of bass music, providing a functional blueprint for the post-dubstep movement that emerged in the 2010s.

Impact on dubstep production

His impact extends beyond simple genre blending. He established a distinct aesthetic that prioritizes analog warmth and melodic progression over digital perfection. He demonstrated that dubstep could incorporate the hypnotic repetition of techno and the soulful chord progressions of garage without losing its dark, club-focused edge. This approach influenced a generation of producers to look beyond their immediate local scenes for inspiration, encouraging a more globalized, borderless approach to electronic music production.

Furthermore, his commitment to independent release formats and curated label aesthetics helped sustain a dedicated club culture focused on high-fidelity sound system dubstep music. He maintained a consistent artistic vision across his entire discography, refusing to chase fleeting trends or commercial crossover attempts. By treating electronic music as a serious compositional practice rather than just functional dancefloor material, he broadened the perception of dubstep and established a sustained relevance based on musicality, technical precision, and continuous sonic exploration.

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