Led by songwriter Max Bien-Kahn, Max and the Martians is a New Orleans-based act made up of an eclectic array of musicians. Releasing their self-titled debut album in 2016, the band set out their distinctive, danceable blend of country and garage rock. Earlier this year, Bien-Kahn and co. returned with Curtains, an EP that built upon this style, drawing from classic rock and roll to achieve the perfect balance between playful grooves and wistful emotion.
Max and the Martians have now released Please Hold On/Love On Vacation, a 7” single consisting of two songs that will be featured on their next full-length album. “It was late spring, it was hot. We would take breaks to let the tape machines cool down, and had to record overdubs with the lights out to avoid the termite swarm in the evening,” Bien-Kahn explains of the recording process. “Duff Thompson, Ross Farbe, and Carver Baronda, some of my favourite songwriters, were playing on this session. We worked on this song all day and we got some really nice results thanks to everybody who was in that room and those magic old reel-to-reels that Mashed Potato Records is known for.”
A-side ‘Please Hold On’ is a smooth shuffle of a track coloured by loss and the passing of time, the gentle country spirit lending that quiet sadness so intrinsic to the genre “[‘Please Hold On’] is a love song to everything we lose,” Bien-Kahn says. “I wrote the lyrics years ago when my grandpa was struggling with Alzheimers, but the song didn’t take form until recently. When loss and grief found me, I rediscovered this song and it took on new life.”
In contrast, ‘Love on Vacation’ is an impish ode to summer dreaming, taking a handful of country rock and a handful of 60s surf to create something warm and glittering. There’s a sense the whole thing is more of a fantasy than a reality, an escape into a place or time where the edges of life are sanded down and our wishes might just come true.
Album artwork by Magda Boreysza