Martin Swan
Martin Swan (born
Swan is best known as the leader of the Mouth Music project, whose combination of traditional Gaelic songs and music with contemporary instrumental and technological settings led them to international fame and number 1 placings in world music sales charts in the early 1990s. His multi-instrumental skills and his approach towards the making of folk music (eclectic, restless and frequently non-purist) has seen him compared to a folk music version of Prince.[1]
Swan is also involved in the restoration, manufacture and design of string instruments.
Though born in England, Swan is of Scottish descent and identifies as Scottish.
Musical abilities
Martin Swan is known to play the following instruments:
- Stringed instruments: fiddle, acoustic and electric guitars, bass guitar, dulcimer, hammered dulcimer, bowed psaltery, berimbau, erhu
- Keyboard instruments: keyboards/synthesizers, accordion
- Wind instruments:
- Acoustic percussion: drum kit, cuica
- Electronics: electronic percussion, synthesizer programming, rhythm programming.
Swan also sings (mostly backing vocals, but more recently lead vocals) and whistles, and is a skilled musical arranger.
Musical projects
Mouth Music
Swan has been the only consistent member of the musical project
Ambisonic
Swan was half of the electronic pop duo Ambisonic (alongside singer Jackie Joyce), who released one album, Ecohero on Nation Records in 1997. The project was a spin-off from the third Mouth Music line-up, in which Joyce was lead singer and Swan's main co-writer and creative foil.
Kries
Swan plays fiddle for the Croatian band Kries (led by ex-Legen frontman Mojmir Novakovic). He appears on the band's second album Kocijani (which he also produced and mixed).
Stobo Village Band
In 2008, Swan began working with the Stobo Village Band, which is described as playing "fast hypnotic acoustic dance music with fiddle, pipes, accordion,
The band made their public debut on 16 January 2008 (at the Celtic Connections concert series in
Zykopops
In 2010, Martin Swan started a "trash folk" band called Zykopops, based in Croatia. Their first live performance was in Zagreb, in October 2010. The band's slogan ("Zykopops... worse than Turbofolk!") is apparently already gaining them notoriety throughout the Balkans. Zykopops rework classic and obscure traditional songs from Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia and Hungary using a punk- and hip-hop-inflected style which they call "
Selected work as producer and engineer
In 1998, Swan remixed
In 2003, Swan produced and engineered
In 2006, Swan produced and engineered Nuru Kane's widely admired Sigil album (on which he also played violin and accordion).
In 2007, Swan produced and mixed the second Kries album Kocijani (released in 2008).
Work in instrument restoration and design
In the mid-1990s Swan moved to the Scottish Borders and developed a second career as a woodworker (carpenter, cabinet maker and violin restorer).[6][7] After cutting off the top of a finger with a woodworking machine in 2008, he decided to give up the large-scale carpentry and concentrate on restoring old violins. He soon became fascinated and exasperated by the variations in tonal quality of old violins and started researching the methods of Eastern European violin makers. This led to him designing a range of handmade violins, violas and cellos, travelling to Transylvania to choose tonewood and developing friendships with the Hungarian luthiers who now make the instruments for him.
Discography (excluding compilations)
with Mouth Music
- Mouth Music (1991) 1990 Triple Earth/Rykodisc
- Blue Door Green Sea EP (1992)
- Mo-Di (1993) Triple Earth/Rykodisc
- Move On EP (1994)
- Shorelife (1995) Triple Earth
- Seafaring Man (2001) (Meta 4/Nettwerk)
- The Scrape (2003) (Skitteesh)
- The Order of Things (2005) (Skitteesh)
with Ambisonic
- Ecohero (1997, Nation Records)
with Kries
- Kocijani (2008, Kopito Records)
References
- ^ “Mouise Mujic Out Of Scotland, Africa” – 4th Door Review interview with Mouth Music circa 1996, retrieved 7 December 2008
- ^ Talitha MacKenzie biography on homepage Archived 28 December 2008 at the Wayback Machine, retrieved 6 December 2008
- ^ Mouth Music "official" Myspace page (Talitha MacKenzie version), retrieved 7 December 2008
- ^ "Paying musical respects to the memory of Martyn Bennett". The Scotsman. 4 January 2006. Retrieved 5 July 2016.
- ^ Zykopops homepage, accessed 21 November 2010
- ^ World Beat Music interview with Martin Swan (2001) Archived 21 January 2009 at the Wayback Machine, retrieved 7 December 2008
- ^ Hinges pop-up on Mouth Music homepage, retrieved 7 December 2008