Selina Martin

Time spent with the Time Spent Swimming creator

The title Time Spent Swimming is about quite literally not being grounded: stepping off the land and floating, the way we were once in utero. It means improvising moves to stay afloat. It means altered views of the world, with a body of water as a lens. It means a solitary, meditative state, with no real purpose other than pleasure. Time Spent Swimming is the title of the new Selina Martin album. It also makes me think of a classic chorus by another Toronto artist: “We’re afraid to call it love / let’s call it swimming.”

Except that Martin, who grew up in the Ottawa Valley and spent her artistic career in Toronto, is no longer in Toronto, or even Ontario (though she’s returning this week for live dates: April 14 at Toronto’s Dakota Tavern, April 15 at Ottawa’s Conspiracy Theory Brewing Company). For the past several years she’s been in the south of France, most recently Cannes. Not for artistic reasons: the real reasons are professional and not that interesting unless you know her personally (which, disclosure: I do). But her move to France, combined with the emotional weight of the pandemic, has channelled feelings of dislocation into what is easily the best work she’s ever done (so far): Time Spent Swimming.

The first time I saw Selina Martin on stage was in northern Alberta at a folk festival during summer solstice, where she had shock-green hair and played wine glasses (among other things) as part of Bob Wiseman’s band while the sun did not set. That was more than 25 years ago.

Since then I’ve admired her work with other favourites of the Have Not Been the Same generation: Rheostatics, Veda Hille, Michael Phillip Wojewoda, etc. I’ve seen her on stage not just as a musician but as an actor. I’ve enjoyed her increasingly fascinating records, as she moved into more electronic sounds and further away from the tropes of Canadian singer-songwriters. “Why is the harder road always the way to go?” she asked on her last album.

I’ve also seen her front a trio that includes an accordionist and a bassist who played drums at the same time. I’ve heard her cover both Rush and the Tragically Hip in completely revelatory ways — the latter was a personal commission for this 2011 Have Not Been the Same reissue project, and I love the fact that she rendered it almost unrecognizable:

Time Spent Swimming opens with “Tangier,” which might be North African reggae if it was played on recognizable instrumentation. But because it sounds like it was beamed in from another planet, it’s in absolutely no danger of being mistaken for North African reggae. I’d love to hear Selina Martin produce and arrange a Robert Plant album (if you’re familiar with Plant’s non-Americana excursions of the last 20 years, this will make sense).

“Two Storeys / The Ground” is a three-note melody that sounds simplistic on the surface, until it becomes a mantra for the transient traveller relishing a feeling of permanence, however fleeting: the lyric describes a room, but the most important feature is “the ground beneath my feet.”

Musically, Martin continues to push herself: obviously influenced by the new wave and art rock of her youth, she embraces sonic explorations in ways I don’t hear most others — of any generation — doing without getting into hyperpop. St. Vincent is the one comparison that comes up often — not without reason, but I find Martin’s songwriting much more emotionally grounded.

Citing St. Vincent seems somewhat gender-fied — “weird guitar woman pushing pop boundaries”! Reviewers bring up Björk, too—but Martin sounds nothing like Björk (who does?). And yet I’m hard pressed to think of a male songwriter in the same ballpark as Selina Martin. Reznor? Byrne at times? (Tangent: I recently revisited Paul Simon’s 2006 album with Brian Eno, Surprise. Underrated then, underrated now.) At a time when people are paying attention to the paucity of female producers, it should be noted that Martin is in charge here.

Yet Time Spent Swimming isn’t just about being in love with the modern world. The song “Smile” sounds like it was written 100 years ago; I actually thought it was the Charlie Chaplin song of the same name the first time I heard it (it’s not). “If You Were a River” could be folk blues (it’s not). “So Lo” sounds like a field chant accompanied by frogs (which it is).

Meanwhile, both “Quarantine” and “Leopard-Skin Vespa” are four-on-the-floor pop songs with big choruses, perhaps the closest Martin has ever come to writing radio songs — for French radio, anyway.

Time Spent Swimming came out in late November last year, and yet still snuck on to a couple of year-end lists. Don’t sleep on it now.

We chatted via Zoom before she flew to Canada for her current tour. If you miss her this weekend, she doesn’t yet know when she’ll be back. For this week’s live Toronto music listings refer to the previous newsletter. My conversation with Selina Martin is below the paywall here:

Selina Martin

March 27, 2023

Do you think you could have made this record if you stayed in Toronto?

No. Stepping out of your comfort zone is necessary if you’re going to push any boundaries at all. There are a bunch of things. In terms of sonic influence: I’ve been listening to French radio stations. Some of which I just hated, but some of it was interesting stuff that I wouldn’t hear in Canada. I started to accept it as the culture I’m in now; I can’t be a shitty music snob complaining about French taste.