Fading Forward

Les Imprimés — 2026

“Smooth on the surface, Fading Forward reveals something heavier the longer you sit with it.”

Morten Martens spent more than two decades shaping other people’s records before Big Crown Records pulled him out into the open. His 2023 debut as Les Imprimés turned heads, got him onto actual stages for the first time, and set up this follow-up with real expectations attached. Fading Forward earns its place as a sophomore record because it goes somewhere more personal and more uncomfortable than Rêverie did, even while it sounds just as easy to put on. The production is warm and analog throughout, the kind of record where the drum breaks feel a half step too loose for modern precision and a half step too stiff for vintage funk. Martens himself admitted he does not have a conventional soul voice, that he does it his own way, and the gap between what this music sounds like and what it is actually saying is where Fading Forward does its most interesting work. The lyrics move through mortality, emotional unavailability, grief, and the occasional desire to just disappear for a while. You might not catch all of it on first listen, which seems intentional.

What keeps the record from feeling like a mood exercise is that Martens is not pretending to be anything other than what he is: a producer who found his way to soul music through rap records and crate digging. The piano cascades feel chosen, not filled in. The doo wop harmonies land in the right spots. Where Fading Forward loses a little ground is in its second half, where a few tracks settle into the same emotional space and start to blur together. But the album earns its runtime more often than it costs it.

“You and I” opens with punchy drums and a cascading piano figure that signals exactly what kind of record this is going to be before Martens has sung a word. “Again and Again” slows the tempo and sits with heartbreak in a way that feels worn and weirdly has more of a Mac DeMarco vibe going on. “Close My Eyes” is the most interesting upbeat cut because it sounds like something you would move to until you pay attention and realize Martens is talking about his own emotional unavailability. “Paradise,” the closer, is a tribute to a friend who passed away, and it ends the record quietly with a real emotional sting.

Monophonics and Khruangbin fans will recognize the same commitment to the passion driving grooves here that consistently dive deeper into a personal level. Listening more to this album I also think that Aaron Frazer brings a similar instinct for classic soul filtered through modern times but 100% keeps an emotional directness.

Fading Forward is the kind of record that rewards the people who stick around long enough to hear what it is actually saying underneath all that soul warmth.