The Sound of a powerful yet beautiful hangover resulting from a night out dancing with Frank Zappa and Astor Piazzolla, each with a girl on their arm and Duke Ellington buying chasers at the bar….

The Green Machine started life as Lau accordionist Martin Green’s commission piece for last year’s Celtic Connections’ New Voices series. Wild noise carvings, voices of unspoilt beauty and a brass band shrunken and mutated during their trip through time and space sit atop a backline of broken beat and ferocious groove. Girls, Brass, Beats and Accordions, they’ve got it all!

“Tirelessly effervescent and creative with outstanding solo features” (The Herald)

Green brings together some of the most prestigious and eclectic talent from England and Scotland to form a new collective: Edinburgh jazzer Sophie Bancroft shares vocal duties with recent Bonnie Prince Billy collaborator, Inge Thomson (also of Karine Polwart Band /Harem Scarem). Brass living legend Rick Taylor with Fergus Kerr (french horn) and Andy McKreel (tuba), both regular players with the SNO and other leading orchestras. Back-line is provided by Barnaby Stradling (Eliza Carthy, Blowzabella) and Ayrshire rhythm master Alyn Cosker. The many terrifying talents of Tom Cook include electronics, guitars, sound manipulation and live sampling (Tom is a producer of drum’n’bass and electronica, working out of his native Brighton under the name “Manni”).

Add to this mix accordion problem child Martin Green playing accordion, samplers and more and you have the formidable new album First Sighting.

Martin Green’s Monstre
New music for Brass Band, Space-Groove Ensemble and Accordion
 
 
 “majestic beauty as well as awesome power… a kindred spirit of audacious, even transgressive invention prevailed here”
**** The Scotsman (review of Monstre premier)
 
“Gustav Holst fights Danny Elfman in a pet shop”
Martin Green
 
Monstre comes from Lau (three times BBC Folk Group of the Year) accordion player Martin Green (nominated BBC Folk Musician of the Year). Raised for some of his childhood in Sheffield, Green developed a love for the sound of the brass band early in life, which has now surfaced in one of the most exciting cross-genre music projects of recent times.
 
It’s massive. 

Monstre involves The Martin Green Machine, the outlet for Green’s less traditional musical out-pourings combined with the enormity of an entire championship brass band. Bass, drums, guitar, and sounds from the piano-accordion that this world has never known combine with the rich and expressive textures of the British brass band.
 
In recent years the standard of competition bands in the British Isles has reached truly virtuosic levels. This has led to composers of contemporary brass music pushing further and further at musical and sonic boundaries. Monstre takes full advantage of the power and versatility of these modern brass players to make a music never before heard, where brass band meets art-rock in the pub car park, shirts off and ready for action. This contemporary sound and exploratory sensibility is all grounded by Green’s traditional-music upbringing and a basis of strong melody, whatever happens on the way, at some point, there’ll be a killer tune to whistle in the shower.
 
First commissioned by the Scottish Arts Council, Monstre premiered in 2009 at The Tolbooth, Stirling.

MySpace: www.myspace.com/martingreen

Navigator Records: www.navigator-store.com/