Martyn's sound isn't going to be plugged into a YouTube video with a "lol dubstep" punchline. KoRn aren't going to ask him for a remix. And he doesn't hang too close to either of the distant poles that James Blake placed between his own indie-friendly ambience and the aggro, wobble-cannon zeitgeist of bass music's more populist and/or frattier impulses. Martyn's 2009 album, Great Lengths, was ideal for dubstep aficionados to turn to when they wanted to explore the genre's extra rhythmic possibilities instead of just fiddling with the volume knob: It traded on gloomy emotional introspection even as the beat drove it into danceable territory, the nuanced buildups of techno and tech house influences either diverting or streamlining 2-step into 4/4.
So it's worth noting that emphasizing any real connection to dubstep as most people know it doesn't do Ghost People much of a service. Sure, there's an appearance by Hyperdub's in-house toaster the Spaceape on the sub-two-minute opener "Love and Machines", but the mannered cyborg deadpan he injects into his usually resonant, foreboding voice should give you fair warning that this isn't your typical Class of '06 sound. Ghost People is a significant tonal shift, a rhythmic paring-down into less complex sounds that border on UK funky gone throwback traditionalist. And while it often lacks the moodier, polyrhythmic highs of Great Lengths and the character that came with it, Martyn's efforts to make it back through no-nonsense propulsion nearly make up for it.
He goes about this to some singleminded, focused ends: between the steam-hissing, clap-driven Detroitisms of "Masks" and "Horror Vacui", the way the title track's congas-and-hi-hats pulse buffets a spiky tech-house riff, and the way he pits stammering vocal loops against clipped synth stabs and a spine-rolling locomotion in "Twice As", there's a lot of comfortable revivalism at work. (And if that's not late-1980s enough for you, check out the pitched-up integration of the spasmodic wah-wah loop that drove Public Enemy's "Mind Terrorist" sneaking into the 808-punctuated "Popgun".) Wading through a lot of old-school signifiers and contending with the overarching feel of a two-decade retreat takes a bit of effort, but if you opt out of worrying your head over the nostalgic implications, you'll at least find some engagingly slippery beats driving the works.
Martyn's said that he's aimed for a sort of Paradise Garage feel to this set of songs, but the sense of uncanny vibe-catching perception and mood manipulation that Larry Levan was legendary at doesn't entirely take here. There's plenty of intensity, some tracks filled with a bit more levity than others, but there's not a ton of immediate personality to this music. And as pastiche goes, its source material is done more justice than the artist's own back catalog-- which isn't a big loss if you care more about dancing than engaging with an artist's continuum of work. And as an extended buildup to the near-nine-minute closer, "We Are You in the Future", the first 10 tracks of Ghost People make for a good preparatory exercise. That last track might be the most audacious thing Martyn's pulled off to date, a stirring buildup to everything he's gleaned from a deep engagement with his classic techno and house heritage, all consolidated into one of those rare tracks that actually earns the overused descriptor "epic." If this album is Martyn's disengagement with 2-step and its descendents, even if it's only temporary, he's benefited from the breather.
