Martin Green

Death and the supernatural have always played a crucial role in traditional songs, but this is surely the most successfully bleak and unsettling concept set yet about ghosts and the afterlife. The project began as a stage show, commissioned by Opera North, in which Martin Green, the accordion player with Lau, was joined by Becky Unthank, of the Unthanks fame, plus the Shetland singer Inge Thomson and Niklas Roswall, an exponent of the ancient and unworldly-sounding Swedish fiddle, the nyckelharpa. Then Adrian Utley of Portishead became involved as co-producer of the album, adding to the brooding sense of unease as two female voices are matched against an unsettling wash of sound. The songs range from the traditional Lyke Wake Dirge, a stark morality tale about the soul's journey after death, to Becky Unthank's icy and thoughtful treatment of Sean Cooney's first world war story One December Morn. Spooky and original.