With a background delivering soul-rich vocals across a spread of genres, Ōtautahi singer-songwriter Lee Martin has earned a reputation as a versatile storytelling artist, with an old soul. The first single from her new album ‘Marlene’ delicately captured the cycle of searching for relief from emotional numbness, the next almost buoyantly faced the constantly shifting aspirational goalposts of life. Martin talked through ‘Marlene’ with Nur Peach.
Lee Martin’s widely praised third album ‘Dreamers Dawn’ was released in 2024 through Auckland indie label AAA Records. Typical of the genre-fluid South African-born singer, the album traversed folk, soul, blues and country, her storytelling reflecting a period of profound personal change.
Approaching her introspective fourth album ‘Marlene’, Martin took a different, more intimate and personal tack, which included recording it as a wholly independent artist.
“The previous albums were a little bit shaped the way that my label wanted them to be. It was very dependent on the record label’s timelines, and I had a bit less input. With this one I have decided I’m just doing what I want to do, and releasing it the way that I want to release it.
“I feel like this one’s more authentic, a little bit more me. I decided I’m just going to let the song be what it is meant to be. But I’m also letting go of outcomes.
“I remember two albums ago, I was so hell bent on making it to the charts, and then I did it, and I’m like, ‘Well, it doesn’t really change much.’ So this time I’m just enjoying the process of releasing music.”
Going it alone meant that Martin organised the production of ‘Marlene’ herself. Recording was done at Christchurch’s Orange Studios, engineered by Thom O’Connor and produced by Henare Kaa. The lineup of featured musicians includes Phil Doublet on guitar, Dru Sione on bass, keys and backing vocals, with Martin’s fiancé Ben Lill on saxophone, and others.
“Henare’s a friend of mine, and we were just chatting about the songs and jamming them, and he’s like, ‘I would love to produce this.’ I’ve always admired Phil Doublet, he is just incredible and so well respected. I actually just asked him one day if he would do an original show with me, thinking he would say, like, ‘No, who are you?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah, I’d love that.’
“Ben introduced me to Dru Sione. I knew he was an amazing bassist, but then Ben was like, ‘Yes, and his vocals are next level.’ So I got him in for bass and then we just got him to sing!
“When Dru sings I’m like, ‘Maybe you should just sing these songs, because you’re so much better than me and just amazing.’ And we actually got him to play the keys as well, because turns out he can do everything!”
As if independence from label oversight had affected Martin on a spiritual level, her songwriting became more deeply personal.
“With previous albums I didn’t really feel I had freedom to do what I wanted to do. I think the whole point of this album is to be quite raw and honest, and not to worry too much about what to withhold and what to share.
“I was less scared this time because there’s no one that can tell me what I should or shouldn’t be putting on an album, so I can just do what I want to do. My new songs are quite raw and lyrically revealing, and there are two songs that I wrote years ago that I never released because they were a bit personal. Those songs just started playing in my mind again, and I thought that’s so crazy, because it makes sense to put them on this album that is so personal!”
Those two older songs are the delicately emotive lead single Feel and the harrowingly slow-building Boy That I Love.
“Feel is essentially about depression. About not wanting to get out of bed and trying to think, ‘How can I get out of bed? I don’t want to face this day,’ and giving yourself a little pep talk to do it, but then deciding, ‘Nah, I’m just going to go back to bed.’
“But then the only way to get out of it is to look to something else, something external, like drugs or alcohol or even someone to make you feel better. But of course that temporary high that makes you face the day essentially brings on a lower low, then you’re just deeper in that hole, so you struggle even more to get out of it.
“So it’s just kind of about trying to fight that substance abuse part of things, to not have to look for that to lift you out of a hole, to be able to do it yourself.”
Boy That I Love recalls Martin’s home country of South Africa and a childhood friend.
“He was my best friend and my childhood crush. I moved to NZ from South Africa because I was attacked in my bedroom. I had to fight this guy off of me. He came in the middle of the night, and it was just traumatic.
“I ended up leaving because I needed to get a better life. Boy That I Love is about missing my family, missing my friends, my sister, my dad, my mum, all these people, and how you adapt and overcome that being on your own, not having any support or anyone around you, and then just thinking about the boy that I loved. He’s still my best friend, but he’s still in South Africa.”
Martin’s newer songs also reflect major life events, Might As Well Dance being particularly notable. The swinging, inspirational number about living life to the fullest was inspired by a near death experience.
“I was on holiday in Rarotonga. It was a working holiday, playing music at different resorts. But I had pneumonia when I was in NZ, and was recovering from it when we left on this planned trip. I got there and I was just trying to not be sick, because I’m in Rarotonga now.
“I got so crook that my pneumonia turned into sepsis. I was singing, and I felt like my organs were hurting, like something wasn’t right. One night I actually collapsed and I saw my body. I was hovering above that body, and I just was unconscious. I died that night, I think. They rushed me to hospital, and I don’t know what they did, put me on different drips of antibiotics and stuff.
“And when I woke up two days later, I couldn’t believe that I was alive. So that song just came to me, like, I might as well dance while I’m still alive, because I had thought I was dead.”
Her album closes with a stirring rendition of Elton John’s Nikita.
“It’s one of the songs that I used to listen to as a little girl in my bedroom. I used to just listen and try to figure out the sounds, like the instruments and things on the song, and I started singing it, and I don’t know why, but that song got me through some nights as a kid.
“I haven’t released covers ever, because I write so many songs, and I feel like it’s always hard for me to even find space for my songs on an album. But with this album, because it’s so revealing of different parts of my life, I decided to add Nikita as a kind of a homage to my penchant for music and how it started, because that was one of the songs that inspired me to start playing guitar and get into music.”
The chorus features warm, uplifting harmonies which are one of Martin’s favourite musical moments.
“When that song came to life in the studio, the way that they did the backing vocals and the music, I was like, ‘This is so cool because it is almost like it’s an original song.’ I think that was something that, just when those vocals came together, that to me was just magic.
“There’s this thing that happens where you feel like you’re not even in your body anymore, because it’s just everything. Everyone’s just on the same page. It’s a very magical experience. I think I love studio time the most. You’re in that space and you are busy laying these tracks down, and especially when everyone’s on the same page, and then it just builds into this little snowball effect, which is just beautiful.”
Martin decided to call the album ‘Marlene’ because that’s the name she was given.
“No one knows it’s my birth name, because my nickname was always just Lee. I just thought, I’m just going to call it ‘Marlene’, because it’s about my life, and it’s quite revealing once you start digging deeper into the songs. And the album artwork, which I designed, is a collage of my eyes cut out from all these photos from my past.”
