Juno nominee and Western Canada Music Award winner Oliver Swain leads some of Victoria's finest singers, instrumentalists and songwriters in BIG MACHINE. Swain is held in high regard in americana, acoustic and folk music styles for his astonishing instrumental and vocal abilities, though he seldom gives the genre a fully traditional treatment. Over the past couple of years, with the addition of Wey and Garramone, BIG MACHINE has grown to include elements of Prog & Psyche Rock, Electronic Music, Spoken Word and BAM. Each member has an impressive resume including many awards and world tours with other projects(Dobres is a 2023 Western Canada Music Award nominee) but there's something unique and astonishing about how their diverse talents fit together in BIG MACHINE.
Pink Moon
Hears to fifty years of Nick Drake’s Pink Moon, the masterpiece that’s always waiting to be discovered. Even back then, no one quite knew what to do with those introspective, nakedly elegiac songs — or the man who created them. Salt Lake City’s Deseret News in 1972 read “It is true that no one knows where Nick Drake lives …Drake is unreachable, does no tours … It is as though he interacts only with nature, yet is ever studying man’s existence.” Adam Dobres, Oliver Swain, Ashley Wey and a host of other Victorian Roots and Classical Musicians recreate some of history's most ethereal and impressionist music with Pink Moon a Tribute to Nick Drake.
They will be performing selections from all three of Drake's classic albums Five Leaves Left, Bryter Layter and Pink Moon.
"My award for the very best session from a fine set of musical encounters at Canmore Folk Festival has to go to BIG MACHINE...a rolling beast of a sound which seems to surprise and delight its creators just as much as their audience." - Peter Wrench, Eden on the Line, Tom Thumb Theatre UK