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The stirring and ethereal sounds of Les Imprimés are the latest addition to the Big Crown family, and you likely haven’t heard of them. More correctly, you haven’t heard of Morten Martens, the man behind the band. Born, raised, and working in Kristiansand, Norway, Morten keeps a low profile while making his heartfelt, highly infectious, and unique music. With his debut 7” single out now and his first and long-held-back solo record due in 2023, the world will soon be familiar with Les Imprimés.
The first thing you notice listening to Les Imprimés is the high level of musicianship. Martens plays nearly every instrument on the recordings and handles the production and arranging. He has been producing and making music for decades. His 2006 Spellemann award for producing a Hip Hop album (aka, the Norwegian Grammy) as well as three other nominations across multiple genres speak volumes to his talent. As Morten tells it, music has been the constant in his life: “There was always music in my house growing up. My parents played music as a hobby, and I always had a collection of weird instruments to play with.” He remembers his parents’ record collection being mostly 60s soft rock and easy listening. But the few soul and gospel records they had in the house hit him the hardest.
It is his sound, his fingerprint, his sensibility, that makes his music hard to categorize. Pulling tones from 60s and 70s Soul, arrangement nods from Doo Wop records, drum energy from Hip Hop, and vocal stylings from the 90s. But, it is Martens’ lyrics, emotion, and delivery that truly make the whole thing come together and stand out from any of his peers. There’s an infectiousness and a pop sensibility in the writing that is done with the utmost class and taste giving Les Imprimés the rare quality of immediate attraction that only deepens as you listen more.
