Now this tastes good, you go trawling, hours and hours of it, trawling through the Organ in-box and a million press releases searching for that one thing. Hang on, cut to the chase, here’s the music, let that do the walking, the talking and everything else, a taster for the new album due out in May, a first nine minutte single and yes we are talking a bloody brilliant big band somewhere near the gap between Battles and Bjork, well that’s where it starts, then you start exploring live footage and clearly they’re way beyond that. Monika Roscher Bigband, never heard of her or them, this is why we do this Organ thing, love it! Brilliant! Check thar hour of live footage down there… “Avant-Pop-Math-Jazz-Experimental Prog Bigband” is how they call it on their social media, that’s just about half of it!

Here’s what the press release said….

“Monika Roscher Bigband (MRB) is comprised of 18 musicians and exists somewhere between math-rock, prog-jazz, avant-pop and experimental electronics. Formed in Munich in 2011, they soon made waves with thrilling live performances and the inventive ideas of Roscher, their founder, singer, guitarist and conductor.

The first two MRB albums, ‘Failure in Wonderland’ (2012) and ‘Of Monsters and Birds’ (2016), were met with acclaim in Germany, where Jazz Echo proclaimed them ‘Newcomer of the Year’. They toured their home territory regularly, playing numerous prestigious festivals and concert halls, but also caused a stir abroad, with the US magazine DownBeat naming them as ‘Rising Stars’.

MRB have now been playing together for over a decade. Virtuosos as individuals, they are nevertheless close-knit as a group and feed on musical challenges set during recording sessions, while each of their rousing live shows is a celebration of the musical freedom and inspiration they offer each other.

Their upcoming third album, ‘Witchy Activities And The Maple Death’, is stunning proof of how fresh and exhilarating MRB sound today. Superbly recorded, it achieves a breathtaking balance of intimate fragility and symphonic intensity that lets the full sonic spectrum of a big band scream and shine in every colour imaginable. Roscher’s tension-filled and intricately detailed compositions evoke otherworldly landscapes that at times enchant with their elegiac beauty, but at others wreak havoc like the unleashed frenzy of a witches’ sabbath thick with haze.

An intense and epic first single from the album, the nine minute ‘8 Prinzessinnen’ (8 Princesses) is out now and acts as a perfect mission statement. It also boasts a suitably matching video. “I stumbled upon the headline ‘8 Princesses Stand Trial’ and couldn’t get it out of my head,” explains Roscher. “What could eight princesses possibly be accused of? In my imagination and for the video they are influencers who have stolen the fountain of youth, but the real life ones stand before a judge to deny any wrongdoing.” As for its insistent, driving music, she states that “I wrote it like some kind of morse code and then set it in motion, like a musical wheel that keeps stumbling but is unstoppable. Another wheel then materialises and clutches on to it, as if two bands were playing at the same time like clockwork.”

MRB love the adventure and are driven by a hunger for musical symbiosis. Simply put, they are a bloody brilliant big band that constantly surprises and reinvents itself”.

The new album is out in May, here come the links – official site  |  Facebook  |  Instagram  |  Bandcamp

Go here for the single…

.

.

And more, just let the whole of this performance unfold, love the way the crown builds in he morning sunshine, a real Cardiacs on that Sunday morning at Reading moment…