Photo by María CarbonellVideo by Jack Burton
Singer · Songwriter
sel¡namartin
Guitarist · Arranger · Performer
Where sound becomes space. Luminous, restless, unexpected, stirring and provocative. Liminal.
Biography
The Ottawa Valley
Selina Martin has spent nearly three decades refusing to be one kind of artist, and it's precisely that refusal that defines her craft. Raised in Pakenham, Ontario, Canada, she grew up in a childhood soundtracked by campfires and memorably, roller discos. She's told the story of a preteen epiphany hearing Rush's "The Spirit of Radio" at a roller rink in Kanata, lights flashing, and music so loud. It's a moment she would return to decades later when she recorded her own sparse, subversive cover of that song.
Photo by Tom MeienburgStagecraft first
Her path into music ran through the theatre. Martin moved to Toronto in the 1990s to study drama at the University of Toronto, and after graduating co-founded Bald Ego Theatre with playwright Adam Nashman, poet Stan Rogal and actor Lisa Ryder. That theatrical grounding has remained a core feature of her work. Critics consistently point to the vividness of her storytelling and the sheer command of her stage presence as inseparable from her songwriting. Exclaim! (CAN) has noted that Selina's writing and performative character draw directly on her skills as a stage actor and storyteller. Even her day jobs have been theatrical: she has worked with the University of Toronto's Standardized Patient Program, performing one-person "medical plays" — scripted patient roles used to help health professionals practise and refine their skills.
Photo by Matthias ScheeleWine glasses and theremins
Martin's apprenticeship in music came inside Toronto's nineties' eccentric indie scene. From 1995 to 1999 she played in Bob Wiseman's band, handling guitar, bass, accordion, theremin, wine glasses and found objects. This multi-instrumental resourcefulness became a signature of her performance. She released her debut, Space Woman, in 1998 and began touring Canada and Europe. Over the following years Selina became a fixture of a musical community that included the Rheostatics, Martin Tielli, Dave Bidini's Bidiniband, NQ Arbuckle, Veda Hille, Justin Rutledge and Amelia Curran. With Bidini, Tielli and Vancouver's Ford Pier, she wrote and recorded the music for the theatrical production Five Hole: Tales of Hockey Erotica, which also became an album and an animated short, and she co-wrote the score for the documentary Act of God with Bidini, Tielli and Fred Frith. She also remains an occasional member of the experimental electronic collective The Faceless Forces of Bigness.
Photo by Lisa MacIntoshFive albums, five reinventions
Each of her five albums marks a deliberate reinvention. Life Drawing Without Instruction (2005) showcased her range, from supple, lilting songs to swaggering anthems. Disaster Fantasies (2010) was her rock statement: the Ottawa Citizen named it one of the ten best albums of the year, and it landed on the Globe and Mail's Polaris Prize picks, with critic Michael Barclay calling it the most underrated Canadian album of its year. 2015's i've been picking caruso's brain; i think i have the information we need to make a new world moved her into sharp experimental Euro-pop territory, drawing comparisons to Björk. Martin coined her own term for it: "post-pop," which she described as simple pop songs made to sound broken, mixing written material with improvisation from players like cellist Peggy Lee and saxophonist Brodie West.
Photo by Ivan OtisLoneliness as raw material
The boldest chapter began when she left Canada for France. The move was itself a kind of artistic experiment: '...to explore loneliness as one of the cornerstones of the human condition'. Then the pandemic delivered more solitude than anyone bargained for. The result was Time Spent Swimming (2022), an album whose title she has explained as being about being between states or places... floating, limbo, waiting; but also about the meditative reprieve of floating in the sea. Sonically it's her most expansive work, fusing organic instrumentation, samples, field recordings, physical synths, plug-ins and vocal improvisation into something she resists naming and critics can't quite pin down. Words like electro-post-rock, art-pop, experimental pop float around. The reception was emphatic: the album debuted at #1 on the NACC college radio charts in the US, Spill Magazine called it fascinating and hard to categorize, and European press placed her in the lineage of Laurie Anderson, Kate Bush, PJ Harvey and Talking Heads. She now lives and works in Spain.
Photo by Lisa MacIntoshSongs are sometimes psychic
What holds this restless catalogue together is a coherent philosophy. Martin talks about songwriting almost mystically: songs, she says, will often tell her what's going on rather than the other way around; they're sometimes psychic. But that intuition is paired with rigour and patience: Her song ‘Rape During Wartime’ is a danceable, two‑chord Talking Heads homage about sexual violence in armed conflict that took eight years to write. She's equally unguarded about the economics of the life she's chosen, describing the struggle to maintain artistic integrity while making the work financially viable without resorting to writing commercial pop.
"I have absolutely no intention of repeating myself."
Photo by Tom MeienburgSmall towns, big rooms
She makes a point of bringing shows to small towns as well as big cities. Growing up in rural Ontario meant exposure to international culture only came if someone drove her into Ottawa. Her 2023 Canadian run wound through modest BC venues as well as the usual big‑city stops. She was invited by Tom Holliston of legendary Canadian art‑punks NoMeansNo to tour the EU in 2018, leading to multiple subsequent tours together across Europe and Canada, and she continues to collaborate widely, including with John Wright’s post‑NoMeansNo project Dead Bob.
Sound is potential
The essence of Selina Martin might be this: she is a songwriter first — melodic, literate, emotionally direct — who treats every other convention as negotiable. Traditional forms of music, she has argued, no longer convey what it feels like to live in the world, so she keeps building new ones. "Sound is potential," she writes; "I believe you have to take risks in order to make art." Nearly thirty years in, she remains what the best critics have always called her: not comparable, but singular.
Photo by @fotolocationally
Photo by Lisa MacIntosh
Photo by Ivan OtisMusic
Discography
Twenty-five years of genre-defying records — from "catchy weirdo rock-pop" to art-pop masterwork. All streaming now on Bandcamp.
Full discography →"Time Spent Swimming shoots into the stratosphere"Exclaim!, CAN
"Album of the Year! '...caruso's brain..' tops the list of NBT radio's best albums of 2015."Köln, DE
"If Feist totally rocked out, it might sound like Disaster Fantasies. One of the 10 best albums of the year"Ottawa Citizen
"Selina Martin has the voice of a thrift-shop angel and the eye of an eagle circling over its prey"★★★★ The Globe & Mail
"I could not stop thinking that Jane Siberry had wed Elvis Costello and Tom Waits performed the service"the Humm
Buy it artist-owned
A musician-run co-op marketplace — Selina keeps 100% of every sale, no platform cut.
Shop on Subvert →Live
On Stage
Joshua Blues Club, Como IT · video by Paola Seregni
Karman Festival, Augsburg DE · @fotolocationally
Karman Festival, Augsburg DE · @fotolocationally
Dordrecht NL · photo by Romeomayor
Karman Festival, Augsburg DE · @fotolocationally
Valthermond NL · photo by Josetta Mellies
Karman Festival, Augsburg DE · @fotolocationally
Dordrecht NL · photo by Yvo Van der Vat
Valthermond NL · photo by Josetta Mellies
Karman Festival, Augsburg DE · @fotolocationally
Szeged HU · photo by Norbert Höffler
Valthermond NL · photo by Josetta Mellies
Karman Festival, Augsburg DE · @fotolocationally
Dordrecht NL · photo by Yvo Van der Vat
Tuczno PL · photo by Jacek Mójta
A38, Budapest HU · photo by Claudia Buzzetti
Lido Club, Vancouver CA · photo by Gordon E. McCawCEX, Valencia ES · photo by María Carbonell
Almonte Town Hall, Almonte CAN · video by Bernard Fraser
Photos: @fotolocationally (Karman Festival, Augsburg DE) · Romeomayor & Yvo Van der Vat (Dordrecht NL) · Josetta Mellies (Valthermond NL) · Norbert Höffler (Szeged HU) · Jacek Mójta (Tuczno PL) · Gordon E. McCaw (Vancouver CA) · Claudia Buzzetti (A38, Budapest HU) · María Carbonell (CEX, Valencia ES)
Videos: Jack Burton (La Fabrica de Hielo, Valencia ES) · Paola Seregni (Joshua Blues Club, Como IT) · Bernard Fraser (Almonte Town Hall, Almonte CAN)
Press
Photo & Video Gallery →"the voice of a thrift-shop angel and the eye of an eagle circling over its prey"The Globe & Mail, CAN
"sounds like a never-released collaboration between Peter Gabriel and Björk"Fidelity, DE
"Martin pulls off something Kate Bushingly theatrical and epic"NOW Magazine, Toronto CAN
★★★★★The Music Express, CAN
"walks between Laurie Anderson, Brian Eno — flirts with Kate Bush and Amanda Palmer"Musikreviews, DE
"Aural Visionary"100.3 SoundFM, CAN
#1
NACC 200 Chart · Top Debut
January 2023 · Time Spent Swimming
"in the same league as Björk and PJ Harvey"Münstersche Zeitung, DE
"This is a recording that not only bears repeated listens; it rewards each hearing with new revelations of an astonishing depth"Roots Music Canada
"Thrilling"Actua News, FR
"five-stars — I found time between gigs to write this review because the record is so good"West End Phoenix, CAN
"One of the most intriguing songwriters in Toronto"Vish Khanna · CBC Radio 3
"Top Albums of 2022"The Globe & Mail, CAN
Photo by Tom Meienburg
Photo by Tom Meienburg
Dordrecht NL
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