TheMachineBreakers
The Band
The Machine Breakers' work is critically acclaimed: Sea Green described as ‘a masterpiece’, The Bells Ring Anyway nominated for a U.S. Indie Acoustic Award, their live album Sunday Evening - 10 PM hailed as a ‘fantastic collection of work to date’, live performance noted as ‘stunning.…passionately intense’, and with the album Eight Men from Three Beams they ventured forth, ‘once more with this brilliant studio work’.
The release of the band’s fifth studio album The Land Was Stolen saw the tracks Among the Boxes and The Times They Ain't a Changin' Bob made into their first videos (available on YouTube), and the title track used in the documentary The Great British Mortgage Swindle. In 2015 the original lineup reformed to record the album Not a Conscript Army.
In 2020, returning with a raw electric sound, The Challow Park Session was released, followed in April 2021 by a new EP Make Mine a Shotgun Funeral. Last but not least, October 2021 saw another set of five new songs recorded as the EP - Let Yourself Be Rescued.
Over the years Julian Pollard’s songwriting has won plaudits from many a diverse quarter, including Mike Harding, Ray Davies and Steve Winwood.
The band have been played on the radio throughout the country, including Mike Harding's Show on BBC Radio 2, and a live session at the BBC’s Pebble Mill studio.
Festival credits include: The Larmer Tree, Broadstairs, Wimbourne, Bridgenorth, Cromer, Wheaton Aston, Hook Norton, Wallingford Bunkfest, and Beggars Fair.
