Les Imprimés

Morten Martens has been living with music for most of his life, even when his name wasn’t attached to it. For more than 20 years, the Norwegian producer worked quietly behind the scenes, shaping other people’s records, studying sound with the utmost reverence to form and craft. So it’s no surprise then that his work as Les Imprimés feels realized, the result of a sonic devotion dedicated to ‘50s doo-wop, easy listening, ‘60s and ‘70s soul, the soft, velvety textures of the ‘80s, and the alt-rock aesthetics of the ‘90s and ‘00s. There’s hip-hop in its DNA, too, emerging through airy rhythm, natural imperfections, and a soothing aura.

In turn, Martens’ new album as Les Imprimés, Fading Forward, feels like a reckoning: a sun-soaked LP that carries the weight of years spent absorbing groove, melody and emotional truth, honest and efficient, gathered without preconceptions of genre. Deliberately untethered to time, Martens blends his influences into art that feels lived-in, nostalgic but not overly so — still very much now while acknowledging then. Martens records with restraint, handling nearly all the playing himself, leaning upon old studio practices where consistency created cohesion. You hear it in the way the album moves through a single melodic thought rather than a playlist. Equally warm, analog and human, nothing feels rushed or decorative.

Like many listeners of his generation, Martens found his way backward through samples, by tracing rap records to the old gospel, soul, jazz and funk vinyl that once filled his childhood home. That sense of return saturates Fading Forward, an intentional record about the complexities of life and the lessons learned from it. “It’s a bit about going into the future and leaving something behind in a way,” he says. 

On purpose, the album has darkness hidden within its bright hue, and it’s not until you listen to the lyrics that you discover how deep it goes. Case in point, the opening chords of “Greatest Mistake” rise slowly to the fore, conjuring the type of old soul you play when clouds hover low. Dig into the theme and you realize this: He’s encouraging listeners to move beyond traumas of the past. Another song, “Close My Eyes,” uses galloping drums and wafting guitar to convey something danceable. But the words speak to the notion of trying to appease unhappy people: it won’t work no matter how hard you push, and sometimes you’re the problem. The song doesn’t just point the finger, Martens takes responsibility for being unreachable emotionally. “Maybe I never let you in, my closet full of skeletons,” he ponders. “I expect you to understand the way I am.” 

Yet the album isn’t overtly bleak. Other tracks like “You and I” and “Get Lost” tap into the togetherness one can extract from human partnership and connection to nature. The former frames romance as survival, a portrait of two people navigating life’s endless obstacles and choosing each other repeatedly. While the latter partially captures the mental weight of small-town isolation and the desire to sink into geography, it’s also about escaping one’s reality. “Paradise,” the album’s concluding track, drifts through a gentle calm — emulating ‘50s Hawaiian soul — as it wrestles with grief. “I like the contrast between happy and sad. The music is very beautiful and nice, and the lyrics are maybe not.” Martens explains.

That juxtaposition defines much of the album’s emotional power, and in the end, Fading Forward speaks to both the LP’s emotional arc and Martens’ personal transition. Though Les Imprimés is still relatively new territory, this well-deserved spotlight is a thrilling shift from anonymity to vulnerability. But the music never sounds unsure. Instead, it moves with patience and clarity, guided by taste, experience and trust in feeling. Fading Forward isn’t about reinvention so much as arrival; it’s the vibration of an artist finally allowing himself to be heard.