Brave New Music

About the Book: 

Martyn Bennett was an artist ahead of his time. Piper, violinist, composer, producer, DJ – his radical blend of tradition and technology created an audacious new sound that was uniquely his own. 

Steeped in the folk cultures of Scotland, yet inspired too by deep-rooted traditions from far beyond, his music ignored boundaries and celebrated cultural difference wherever he found it. Although classically trained, he was drawn to the gritty excitement of the urban dance club scene, and his fusion of folk, classical, jazz and hard-edged electronica was championed by the likes of Peter Gabriel and the folklorist Hamish Henderson who labelled it ‘brave new music’.

This biography traces his story through personal struggles and artistic triumphs, and offers an assessment of his place in the pantheon of major Scottish artists. It is a story of resilience as well as innovation: twice diagnosed with unrelated cancers, his professional career lasted little more than a decade, and he fought serious illness for half of it. He died in January 2005, aged 33. Yet his art continues to inspire: where he led, others have followed, and his music still wins awards and fills concert halls at major international festivals two decades after his death.

Reviews: 

Martyn Bennett’s importance in the advancement of music can not be overstated. All art must evolve in order to survive. But the delicate balancing act between the past and the future needs a skilled artist to properly serve both sides. Martyn Bennett was such a figure. The world of contemporary folk would be the poorer without his contribution. Not only in Scotland and the UK, but internationally.

The way he could advance this revered art form while remaining true to its roots is a story to inspire artists of all disciplines. His loss was a personal one to many who knew and loved this singular individual. But in the retelling of his remarkable story to future artists, our culture could be all the richer. PHILL JUPITUS

Martyn Bennett was the most inspirational and gifted musician to come out of Scotland for generations. His vision took traditional music into a realm where angels fear to tread and created a sound that was unique and undeniably powerful. He was fearless and magnificent, an artist in the truest sense of the word - a lightning bolt of creative genius. It is vital that his story of courage and his musical legacy live on as an inspiration to future generations of musicians and artists and that is why the planned biography of him should be supported by all of us who feel deeply privileged to have known him. DAVID HAYMAN

Martyn Bennett was so important a figure in music here in Scotland that it is impossible to exaggerate either his cultural importance or the influence his work has had on the musical creativity of the next, and indeed the now, generation. Not just nationally, but in the sphere of world-music. His roots in indigenous Scottish music were lifelong, and went deep, from Gaelic big song to pibroch to the unaccompanied ballad-singing of the great traveller community with its rich mix of Scots vernaculars. His mother, Margaret Bennett, is a much loved and far renowned Gaelic singer, who worked in Edinburgh University’s School of Scottish Studies, that unique corner of academe with its important emphasis on the oral tradition. Martyn grew up with all the singers, musicians and poets arguing, laughing and singing round their fireside. He imbibed their culture - and the cultures of the visiting musicians, poets and folklorists from all over the world who frequented their home. At the very beginning of the 1990s Martyn was well known among his student contemporaries at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (now the Conservatoire) as a very talented budding classical violinist. Who could have predicted his transformative discovery of Dance Culture - and the dreadlock? Or the cruel diagnosis of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma which so blighted the last years of his tragically short life, but never blunted his creative edge. Of course it's the music, the glorious generosity of 'fusion', which is his legacy. All power to the pen of Martyn Bennett's biographer. LIZ LOCHHEAD

This guy is bloody great! SEAN CONNERY

Scots music has never sounded like this before. No music has ever sounded like this before. MOJO

There is no-one else on earth so modern and so ancient at the same time: so true to our roots and so free in creating new sounds. The Scotsman

He was an enormously gifted, soulful, passionate, generous musician. PETER GABRIEL

A gentle and generous figure with a ready sense of humour. The Telegraph

Star of the Celtic music scene with a unique pipes and beats sound. The Guardian

Grit is Martyn Bennett's tour de force. No-one else welds the Scottish tradition to cutting edge electronica so well and here you couldn't slide an atom between the elements, so well are they interwoven. ... It's an astounding experience, simultaneously painful and up lifting. This is a man with a huge voice. BBC

An absorbing reconciliation of the raw and the cooked. The Independent (UK)

About the Author:

GARY WEST is a senior lecturer in Scottish Studies at the University of Edinburgh. He is also an active traditional musician and teacher, and presents a weekly programme, Pipeline, on BBC Radio Scotland. Originally from Pitlochry in Perthshire, he played for many years with the innovative Vale of Atholl Pipe Band, winning the Scottish and European Championships. In his late teens, he moved sideways into the folk scene, playing, recording and touring with the bands Ceolbeg and Clan Alba, and becoming a founder member of the ceilidh band, Hugh MacDiarmid’s Haircut. He has performed on around 20 albums, including his debut solo release, The Islay Ball, and his most recent collaboration, Hinterlands, with harpist Wendy Stewart.