Press

“[Voices of the Asylum for voices, human beatbox, fashion, electronics and space]… was beautifully impressive… a soundscape built from human voices, electronically processed at times, melded to recordings of vocal phrases and beats. Martin is an immensely talented, skilled and imaginative musician. Martin’s music carried a beguiling combination of energy and purity…. moments of aesthetic interest, consummately skilful writing and intelligent mastery of electronics melted together in his hands to form a soundscape of cryptic interest and beauty.”

classicalsource.com

“Delicious… What transpires is indeed spectacular. The models walk the four points of the cross wearing designs that have their roots in both traditional Japanese design and 20’s Western decadence… undulate with Martin’s majestic composition. The sound is beautiful, and shifts its mood with the changes in the styles of the designers… Black and White is suggestive of the ambient works of artists such as Aphex Twin, Susumu Yokota, Boards of Canada and Nobukazu Takemura. ‘The foundation for the music and the show was the creation of an electronic aural Japanese summer evening, fusing pre-recorded manipulated Japanese birdsong and the sounds of the fountain, evoking Japanese gardens in Buddhist and Shinto temples.’ There is a parallel to be drawn between Phillip Neil Martin and Chris Cunningham in this instance. Chris Cunningham, who first achieved notoriety in 1997 with the disturbing and frenetic video for Aphex Twin’s Come to Daddy, has since created pieces for Bjork – All is Full of Love – Portishead – Only You – and for Madonna’s hit single Frozen. When watching one of Cunningham’s videos, one is struck by the close bond between the music and the visuals, not merely rhythmically but also conceptually. Martin does just this with Black and White, immersing you in serene and powerful hybrid, the cultural synapse between east and west, and the possibilities of the symbiosis between sound and sight… a unique and unforgettable evening.”

Upstreet

“Phillip Neil Martin’s An Outburst of Time had a strong, coherent structure and manic intensity… was striking and expressively charged… successfully grappled with idiom and with self-posed structural challenges.”

Broadsheets

“Phillip Neil Martin’s Shifting Mirrors, a study in musical reflection, was technically highly assured.”

The Guardian

“Martin has had a meteoric rise in the last couple of years.”

BBC Radio 3

“Phillip Neil Martin’s romanticism, that is occasionally woven into the music, was astoundingly beautiful. The phrases where the violins played like an elegy reminded me of Bartok… The stormy tutti at the climax and the episode in the coda, played peacefully by the solo violin and woodwinds was well-refined. I personally value this piece as the best of all. ”

The Toru Takemitsu International Composition Award 2003 Nights Bright Days by Hidekuni Maeda, the “Ongaku-no Tomo” Music Magazine.

Translation by Mariko Inaba – the Japan Foundation

“Nights Bright Days … sang to me”

Tokyo Weekender

“Two Reflections on Milton [was]… arresting and scintillatingly.“

ClassicalSource.com

“ Standing Water by Phillip Neil Martin made and left a big impression over its 8 minutes of chirruping fragments and rhythmic guile, and the sometimes-apparent influence of Japanese gagaku…. made for an engaging piece; one, hopefully, to be heard again. “

ClassicalSource.com

“ Martin’s engaging composition Old Night is a wonderful piece… a real rollercoaster of a journey… With the piece lacking in any formal breaks, the intensity of Hubbard’s playing is etched all over his face, making the growing passion of the composition all the more tangible to the beneficiaries – many of whom are mere inches away from the performers. This, my first experience of Phillip Neil Martin, was a delight. ”

EdinburghGuide.com

“Phillip Neil Martin’s Shifting Mirrors turns a chamber ensemble into something rich and sometimes rapturous.”

The Times

“Phillip’s composition (for The Forget Me Not Sonata novel) is uncanny, it is as if Louis has stepped out of the pages and translated into music his tormented heart. He captured it brilliantly… A rising star.”

Santa Montefiore (https://santamontefiore.co.uk/books/the-forget-me-not-sonata/)

“[Phillip Neil Martin’s Coutts London Jewellery Week and Burlington Arcade installation] featuring models dressed in cashmere, flamboyant footwear… and dazzling jewellery staged a glittering show… ‘There’s a great attendance. It’s great staging,’ enthused Jaeger boss and British Fashion Council Chairman Harold Tillman.”

Vogue.com