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"WHAUR extremes meet" is how Hugh MacDiarmid might have put it, but we're talking accordions here. As Celtic Connections' "Homecoming Scotland: All-Star Ceilidh Band" extravaganza approaches, promising such squeezebox luminaries as Donald Shaw and Phil Cunningham, two accordion recordings have dropped on to my desk, and they're worlds apart.
One is First Sighting, from the Martin Green Machine, formed by the demon accordionist and prolific composer from high-flying trio Lau, here concocting what is described in the promotional blurb as "the sound of a powerful yet beautiful hangover resulting from a night out dancing with Frank Zappa and Astor Piazzolla". Mmmm. It's certainly a sometimes bewildering, sometimes beguiling clamjamfry of this inventive musician's hyper-eclectic music, replete with beefy brass, electronic loops, voice samples and other trickery - the introductory Repetition sets the tone with swirling accordion strains and speech snatches, rasping trombone...