Martin Lauer

Composer – Performer – Writer – Translator

Music, that most elusive and yet viscerally powerful art form which can send shivers down your spine, free your thoughts from earthbound constraints or cause tremors in your innards has been a great passion and a serious pursuit of mine since I fell for the intoxicating expressivity of punk rock in my teens. Read on and discover more!

Film Score

My approach to film scoring begins with a deep dive into the director's cinematic vision, identifying key themes and dramatic cuts. I then craft music that directly reflects and enhances these elements, employing techniques ranging from delicate double bass harmonics to intense synth textures. I use a wide range of instruments, including strings (especially the double bass), piano, Balinese gamelan, as well as diverse virtual instruments, electronics and effects.

Ms. President (2024), directed by Marek Šulík, is "A fascinating and absorbing character study of Zuzana Čaputová's five years as Slovak President addressing the ethical and political shifts in Slovak society during this time." as described by the jury of the 28th Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival where the film won the Opus Bonum Best Film Award. I worked on the score with Eva Sajanová, who composed a series of pieces for saxophone quarter. My compositions feature the timbres and rhythms of Balinese gamelan instruments and electronics.Ms. President is nominated for the Czech Lion Award 2025 in the Best Documentary Feature category.

Akedah (2023), directed by Alessandro Manuel Rustanto, is a dark portrayal of inner struggles of a female priest (Silvana Wasitova) during the period of politically motivated violence in 1965 in Indonesia. It won The Best Short Film award at PAFFF24.

Kartika (2021), directed by Alessandro Manuel Rustanto, is a short film detailing the dramatic events of the coup d'etat of 1965 in Indonesia from the perspective of young Indonesian expatriates living in Prague at the time of general Suharto's takeover of power. The film is accompanied by original score composed by Martin Lauer featuring electronics, double bass, piano, rebab and other Balinese gamelan instruments.

Sonic Meld

Sonic Meld is an electro-instrumental outfit from Prague with three core members: Yonatan Omer (beats & live percussion/keys), Jan Návrat (guitar, electronics) and Martin Lauer (electric bass/bass synths). Situated on the boundaries of electronic and instrumental music, improvisation and tightly-knit composition, a full-on dance party and chillout session, Sonic Meld crafts peaceful ambient pieces, throbbing dub bangers, energizing upbeat funk grooves and so much more. Sonic Meld often performs with various guests from the Prague improvisation scene and its home base is located at Burza #4 in Holešovická tržnice where they run the regular Sonic Meld Sessions.The next Sonic Meld session #6 will take place on 15 January 2024 at 8 pm at Burza #4. See you there!

Gamelan Narwastu

Narwastu is an interfaith and multi-ethnic sanggar (art community) based in Sanur, Bali, and run by Jonathan Bailey. Narwastu focuses on the interpretation of traditional repertoire for Balinese Gamelan and also commissions gamelan works from Balinese as well as Western composers. One of such works is IN...SE..., a monumental three-gamelan opera composed by Andys Skordis with choreography by Jelena Vuksanovic, in which I performed the gong part.

Music

Autopoetik

An experimental solo project summoning a vortex of improvisatory responses to prerecorded samples, loops and field recordings. With the aim to create artificial soundscapes which are partly pre-determined, yet at the same time highly volatile, each Autopoetik's performance promises a truly unique experience.

Autopoetik's debut solo album Machine-Bird-Rain was released on the Czech independent netlabel Signals from Arkaim and can be streamed or download for free here.

Autopoetik’s second album EZY6266 inspired by the sounds (mainly drone) of airplanes and airports was realeased on independent Czech label Meteorismo in July 2019 as a limited edition casette tape and digital release and can be streamed or purchased here.

Syndicate

Syndicate is a spectacular journey across several musical continents. It is a combination of three visions. The first one will guide you through gradually revolving lowlands which sketch out a seemingly unattainable horizon in the background concealing an emotional denouement of each tune. The second features a winding path through a rugged mountaineous terrain leading in unpredictable directions only to reveal an astonishing view into the valley. The third landscape is stretched over silent, vast plains whose horizon blurs amidst the shimmering air and foggy mist hovering above the pulsing metropolis.Syndicate's debut album Dissolution was launched at Prague Microfestival 2017 and features Louis Armand's reading of his poem "No Man is a Bridge" and Aren Ock's rendering of Stephan Delbos's poem "The Rusted Door."

Sound

As a medium encompassing all forms of human aural experience, sound is an immensely fascinating phenomenon. Be it the mellow solo of an oboe in an orchestra, chirping cicadas or minute everyday sonic events surrounding us such as boiling water in a tea kettle – each sound in the world has the potential to captivate us and leave a strong impression in our minds.When it comes to the appreciation of sound, we have to hearing and listening. While hearing is a passive activity that is beyond our conscious control and one that we cannot completely block, listening is a subjective, culturally determined, conscious activity in which we use our hearing to generate meaning from the perceived sounds. In Pauline Oliveros's words: "The ear hears, the brain listens".

I am fascinated by all kinds of sounds and I enjoy discovering new sonic phenomena in my surroundings. Wherever I go,, I carry a handheld Zoom recorder with me, intent on capturing more or less unique sounds. I am also a proponent of the soundscape theory of R. M. Schafer and I am intrigued by the discoveries and findings og acoustic ecology as well as in sound art utilizing field recordings and sonic installations.One way to open up our ears to the sounds around us is through soundwalking – a practice in which one explores the sonic environment of a given area in silence and appreciates the sounds or records them. I organize soundwalks from time to time in Prague. If you are interested in attending a soundwalk, please check my schedule hereI am also sharing my recordings from all around the world on Radio Aporee, where you can browse through thousands of recordings from all corners of the earth and sounds from Czech Republic on Sonicity. You can find my recordings tere if you type my name in the search box. In addition, I write a blog called Soundmarks focused on the exploration of sonic properties of specific locations I visited.

Text

Apart from doing music, I really enjoy writing about it. And not just music, my critical output encompasses sound art, psychoacoustics, acoustic ecology and many other topics. In my writing on music, I like to focus on innovative, trailblazing and bold feats in music – be it jazz, electronic or contemporary classical music – and align them with the latest trends and cultural processes at play.Currently, I contribute to two Czech magazines, His Voice and A2, writing reviews and feature articles. I am also involved in an ongoing localization of the content of a major music streaming platform. Here's a short excerpt from my review "United by Rhythm" of La reve de Polypheme of French ethno-fusion ensemble Polypheme, published in issue 24 of magazine A2 in 2024:Although La Rêve de Polyphème is rooted in the blending of two distinct musical cultures, it skillfully avoids the common pitfalls of world music, genre that often arbitrarily appropriates non-Western musical concepts, repackaging them into neatly consumable products for Western audiences. In contrast, La Rêve de Polyphème offers a genuine exploration of two musical traditions in fruitful dialogue. Here, divergent approaches bolster and complement one another, forging a new synthetic musical language. If you insist on categorization, the music of La Rêve de Polyphème fits more naturally within broader labels such as experimental music, contemporary music, or – with some reservation – ethno-fusion. (Spojeni rytmem: Mezikulturní dialog souboru Polyphème, A2, 24/2024, translated from Czech)

Translation

Even in my day job as an English-Czech translator & interpreter, I tend to keep my focus on music. In the translation of musicological and ethonomusicological texts, localization of music streaming app content or copywriting, I make use of my music background and knowledge of music theory, history and contemporary trends in music nowadays. I have translated or co-translated the following books about music and sound from English to Czech:

Academic publications featuring my translations (English to Czech & Czech to English):

If you would like to know more about my translation and interpreting work, please visit my professional translation website.