Arts & Leisure

Walter Martin’s second album after the dissolution of the stormy, passionate Walkmen explores his love for art history. While that may not seem like a subject to sell a song on, the subject matter is transformed by Martin’s warm, restless sense of humor, which discourses on subjects ranging from the tipping habits of college kids (“Jobs I Had Before I Got Rich and Famous”) to 19th-century paintings of boys with pet squirrels (“Watson and the Shark”). A folksy, deceptively simple album, *Arts & Leisure* puts high culture on a low shelf and makes the mundane glow.

Arts & Leisure is a collection of songs that take inspiration from Martin's years of world travel as a musician, his younger days working in art museums and what he refers to as his "shaky grasp of college art history." Humorous personal stories about art, artists, museums and architecture.

Of the handful of solo endeavors that sprung up from The Walkmen’s 2013 pause, organist/bassist Walter Martin’s We’re All…

Walter Martin's solo debut, We're All Young Together, was an album for kids that grown-ups could love, but his follow-up, Arts & Leisure, takes that young-at-heart whimsy in directions only adults will appreciate fully.

When your longtime band calls it quits, it can be a challenge setting off on your own and finding your own voice.

'Arts & Leisure' by Walter Martin. album review by Gregory Adams. The full-length comes out on January 29th via Ile Flottante Music.