Starflyer 59

Jason Martin functions as the exclusive composer for Starflyer 59, an endeavor that fuses his affinity for British shoegaze, Beatlesque pop, dreamy space rock, and the craft of assorted indie acts such as the Smiths and My Bloody Valentine. The project surfaced in 1993 with a style that adhered tightly to shoegaze’s sonic framework. Starting with 1998’s The Fashion Focus, Martin eased away from layered guitars and gravitated instead toward keyboards and classic pop construction. He began enlisting other players, among them Frank Lenz, Wayne Everett, and Richard Swift, while sustaining a high output that featured 2001’s Leave Here a Stranger, 2010’s Changing of the Guard, and 2019’s Young in My Head, the last of which entered the Top 25 of the Christian Albums chart. In 2021 he issued his sixteenth long-player, Vanity.

A Southern California native, Martin grew up in a Christian home that excluded secular music. At twelve he first heard the Smiths’ The Queen Is Dead; although faith stayed central to his life, it did not prevent immersion in My Bloody Valentine and further shoegaze touchstones. Both the Smiths’ melodic approach and MBV’s reverberant guitar sheets later shaped his writing. To gauge his skills, he began penning songs and playing keyboards for Dancehouse Children, the band fronted by his older brother. Starflyer 59 launched in 1993, giving Martin room to shape his idiosyncratic pop with assorted guests. Because he wrote every track, produced each session, and handled most instruments, a traditional band lineup never became necessary in the studio. After signing with Tooth & Nail Records, the first Starflyer 59 album appeared as the 1994 self-titled release, followed by another identically titled set in 1995 whose gold cover contrasted the debut’s silver one. Martin kept a brisk pace, delivering Americana, The Fashion Focus, and Everybody Makes Mistakes between 1997 and 1999. In the same stretch he formed Bon Voyage with his wife Julie and released a self-titled pop-punk album in 1998; the group later issued two additional records in 2002 and 2008.

Over time Martin relaxed his one-man recording method and welcomed contributions from numerous players, including Frank Lenz, Wayne Everett, and Richard Swift. Lenz took part in the acclaimed 2001 album Leave Here a Stranger, which expanded the band’s musical reach while the mix was ironically rendered in mono. Martin maintained a near-annual release schedule with 2003’s Old, 2004’s I Am the Portuguese Blues, 2005’s Talking Voice vs. Singing Voice, and 2006’s My Island before moderating his output. The next two Starflyer 59 albums, 2008’s Dial M and 2010’s The Changing of the Guard, traced his continued artistic evolution and reflected personal changes beyond music. After recording exclusively for Tooth & Nail throughout his career, Martin self-released 2013’s IAMACEO on his own South Co. Records imprint. The separation proved brief, and he returned to the label for the fourteenth and fifteenth studio albums, 2016’s Slow and 2019’s Young in My Head, both of which reached the Top 25 on Billboard’s Christian Albums chart. A sixteenth full-length, Vanity, arrived in October 2021 with production by longtime associate and keyboardist T.W. Walsh.