Meeting him now, Patrick Martin exudes the irresistible energy of an artist born to be center stage at sold out arenas. It would be easy to assume he had been born that way, spending his youth taking every opportunity to flaunt his talents. On the contrary, he started out refusing to share his music outside the four walls of his bedroom. “Music was precious to me and gave me presence in my anxious mind, so sharing it with anyone seemed to take that away. I felt like the songs that I had written were only for the person who inspired them,” Martin says, laughing. Times have changed: these days, the Los Angeles-based singer is beyond ready to play his music for everyone. Martin retains that sense of just-you-and-me intimacy in the eight songs on his new Glassnote Records EP, Velvet Time, and pairs it with irresistible hooks and a pulsing….

Meeting him now, Patrick Martin exudes the irresistible energy of an artist born to be center stage at sold out arenas. It would be easy to assume he had been born that way, spending his youth taking every opportunity to flaunt his talents. On the contrary, he started out refusing to share his music outside the four walls of his bedroom.

“Music was precious to me and gave me presence in my anxious mind, so sharing it with anyone seemed to take that away. I felt like the songs that I had written were only for the person who inspired them,” Martin says, laughing.

Times have changed: these days, the Los Angeles-based singer is beyond ready to play his music for everyone. Martin retains that sense of just-you-and-me intimacy in the eight songs on his new Glassnote Records EP, Velvet Time, and pairs it with irresistible hooks and a pulsing alt-pop sensibility that feels built for big moments.Lead single “Dandelion Eyes” sets the tone, with layers of kaleidoscopic vocals soaring over a mix of synthesizers and guitars, all held together by a propulsive beat that won’t take sitting still for an answer. Recorded with contributors including the producers Nick Lobel (Harry Styles, Leon Bridges) and Tim Pagnotta (Walk the Moon, Neon Trees), Velvet Time is the work of a budding artist who has figured out what he wants to say, and how to say it.

“I have such a sense of freedom,” Martin says. “I’ve written so many different styles of songs, and it’s taken a lot of experimentation, but I’ve really found what inspires me.”

For all the intimacy of Martin’s lyrics, the themes on Velvet Time tilt toward universal as the singer explores the concepts of human identity and culture from the widest lens— namely, outer space.

“This whole EP is very much inspired by our relationship with our planet,” Martin says, in a way that encompasses love, but also the ideas of isolation and loss. Martin is taking a long view here, as if he were seeing the Earth from the viewpoint of an astronaut on a one-way trip away from it all.

“When you look at our world from a totally different perspective, like from the cosmos, you see it very differently,” he says. “It really makes you think more deeply about how special this place is.”

Martin’s songs are often rooted in his own life, then blended with cultural inspiration he pulls from film, television, and books, and filtered through a vivid imagination that spins his ideas into wide-screen narratives. The result is songs that are specific, yet relatable and open to interpretation.

“You know how sometimes movies say they’re inspired by true events? You could describe a lot of my songs the same way,” Martin says. “There’s a lot of leeway in what comes from other places and what comes from my actual experience.” He pauses. “And that’s cool, because I certainly haven’t been to space.”

Though Martin started writing songs in high school, his immersion in music began much earlier. Growing up near Milwaukee, he absorbed the sound of artist including the Beatles, Bob Seger, and Fleetwood Mac while accompanying his mom, a tailor, as she made her rounds delivering the clothing she had altered.

“We would hop in the car with her at 3 in the afternoon and drive around for a couple hours, so there was a lot of music exposure in those hours,” Martin says.

Inspired to pick up guitar by a cousin who could shred, Martin began writing songs as an emotional outlet, and a way to try impressing the girls he had crushes on. He got more serious about songwriting after a wrenching breakup midway through college, and landed in L.A. after graduation to make music a full-time thing. There was just one catch: he hadn’t performed on stage since high school choir concerts, which sometimes made him so anxious he would freeze and be unable to sing.

Turns out maybe the problem was the material: once Martin started singing his own songs to an audience, the fear vanished. Suddenly, he loved being onstage.

“Now, performing to me is the highest high,” he says. “It’s just the most present I could ever be. I’m singing things I really believe in and I’m singing words that I have cried for and they’re stories that I want to tell.”