MDM first gained recognition in 1991 as the drummer of the Munich-based art rock band "Brother Virus" with their debut album "Happy Hour – Live at the Knitting Factory" (TUTU/ENJA Records). With this band, he was a regular live guest on the German National TV (ARD/BR) political talk show "Veranda: Gäste bei Dagobert Lindlau".

From 1993 to 1995, he lived and worked in New York City as an active member of the “downtown avant-garde” scene around the legendary clubs "Knitting Factory" and "CBGB’s". During this time, he studied drums with Dennis Charles, Gene Jackson, Sam Ulano, Michael Carvin, and Joey Baron, as well as contemporary music with Prof. Dr. Dinu Ghezzo (NYU) and the Georgian master composer Giya Kancheli.

From 1997 to 1999, MdM traveled through Romania and Bulgaria on a DAAD scholarship and studied Eastern European folklore at the Music Academy in Cluj-Napoca. During this time, he co-founded the jazz ensemble and international musicians’ network "Interzone" together with Romanian pianist Mircea Tiberian. Over a period of 20 years, this project produced 15 albums and numerous international tours involving more than 50 renowned musicians from Western and Eastern Europe. The ensemble became known for its distinctive fusion of contemporary jazz and free improvisation with influences from Eastern European folklore.

In 2000, he founded the "Berlin Jazz Composers Ensemble" with musicians out of 7 countries involving the U.S. Within this context, the work "Transylvaniana" was created, reflecting his folklore research and regarded as a highlight of his work in and about Eastern Europe.

Between 2000 and 2005, de Martin was the drummer in various formations of the Polish “Yass” scene, including Olo Walicki’s "Metalla Pretiosa", Adam Pierończyk’s "Digivooco", and the trio of pianist Leszek Możdżer.

At the same time, he worked in Berlin with NYC free jazz bassist Sirone and collaborated internationally with Elliott Sharp, Gary Thomas, Tim Berne, John Taylor, Terje Rypdal, Palle Mikkelborg, Melvin Gibbs, and Herb Robertson.

Since 1999, MdM has been a permanent member of the renowned contemporary music ensemble "zeitkratzer". With the group, he has performed and released works by John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and James Tenney, as well as music by Kraftwerk and Whitehouse. This led to collaborations with Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, Alvin Lucier, Arto Lindsay, Keiji Haino, Carsten Nicolai, Oval, Manuel Göttsching, and Terre Thaemlitz.

From 2003 to 2008, he was part of the trio "3D" with Christopher Dell (vibraphone), with whom he released two albums on the NotTwo label. Between 2008 and 2010, three extended stays in Seoul led to collaborations with traditional "Samulnori" musicians and Buddhist drum monks.

His collaboration with his friend and colleague Mircea Tiberian lasted from 1997 until Tiberian’s death in 2025. Their last jointly released recording was the duo project "Dance around the Drageon Tree" (2018). De Martin also published an obituary for Tiberian in the Bucharest-based journal "Revista Cultura".

As his most recent work in Romania to date, MdM realized "On the Stairs of the Wind" during the COVID pandemic, a homage to the Romanian-German poet Rolf Bossert. The piece premiered in October 2021 (and again in 2022) at the German State Theatre Timișoara. In an interview with "FunkForum", the platform of the German minorities in Romania, MdM reflects on his work there during the lockdown.

From 2006 to 2009, de Martin worked as a composer, performer, and musical director at the Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz in Berlin (directed by Thomas Ostermeier) and collaborated with the choreographers Sasha Waltz and Constanza Macras. During the same period and also later again, he collaborated as a musician, performer, and coach with the renowned performance collective "She She Pop" and the Berlin-based theatre collective "Oper Dynamo West".

From 2009 to 2012, he lived in Switzerland, where he earned a Master’s degree in "Contemporary Arts Practice" at the Bern University of the Arts. During this time, he served as musical director of the Zurich-based theatre group "PLASMA" and collaborated with the Bern-based electronic music collective "Mathon" @ Everest Records.

As a sound artist, he realized the 8-channel listening piece "Morgenarbeit" in 2016 as Artist in Residence at MuseumsQuartier Vienna / Tonspur Passage, focusing on the Lipizzaner horses of the Spanish Riding School Vienna.

From 2018 to 2020, he collaborated with Dirk Dresselhaus (aka Schneider TM), Hilary Jeffery, and Susanne Sachsse on a revival of the “International Ladies’ Show Band GIRLS,” originally founded in 1967 by his mother Anny de Martin. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of her death, he initiated the reenactment album "GIRLS – Tell the Drummer I Still Love Her", released on his newly founded label IZBITINZID records, on which he has since released four albums.

To date, de Martin has contributed to nearly 100 album releases, 15 of them as a leader and four on his own label.

In 2020 and 2021, he worked as a musical facilitator in the psychiatric emergency care unit of the Immanuel Clinic Rüdersdorf near Berlin, where he developed his methodology of “time practice”, which he now applies within his project CHRONARTA.

In 2021, he and his family established a second residence on a farm in Saxony at the foothills of the remote mountain region Erzgebirge, where he set up a music and art studio.

There, in 2022, he created the avant-manele album "Radical Cultural Approximation", centered on the traditional Romanian "țambal mic", and in 2024 the album "Conversation with Myself", for which he recorded all instruments of a classical piano trio himself using a multi-stage solo recording technique developed during the pandemic. The album pays homage to Bill Evans’ solo duo studio album of the same name (1963), in which he improvised with himself.

In 2023, together with Swiss performance artist Saskia Edens, he realized the multidisciplinary work "Danse Macabre" at Zwingli Church Berlin—a reflection on the medieval motif of the dance of death, situated between performance art, video, improvisation, and early music.  This piece emerged from a collaboration with baroque tenor Jan Kobow, lutenist Andreas Arend, and reciter Mariel Supka under the title "Kürbishütte @ Instantopia", featuring texts by Simon Dach and compositions by the early Baroque Königsberg composer Heinrich Albert. A short film based on the project was produced by documentary filmmaker Vincent Schläger.

The work also marks a symbolic departure from the Berlin free scene and from the contemporary cultural scene as such, from which MdM had increasingly distanced himself. The move into maximum remoteness condenses in this piece into a turning point: a fork in the road—and a conscious departure to new horizons.

In collaboration with "Jugend.Kunst.Schule Frankenberg" and the "Saxon Rural Women’s Association", the "Landfrauenband" was created in 2023—a participatory format bringing together women of different generations from rural areas. Over the course of three months, a distinctive stage program with music, dance, and visuals was developed from scratch. Supported by guest artists from advanced pop contexts, a collective “signature music” emerged.

The premiere of "Utopische Landfrauen" took place on December 8, 2023, at the World Theatre Frankenberg. The project combined empowerment with collective authorship and social practice. A limited mini CD, "Landfrauenband – Impromptus on a Prepared Piano", documents part of the complex overall work and is available digitally on Bandcamp.