The Cinematic Orchestra

One of my favourite bands at the moment is The Cinematic Orchestra. I was introduced to them about 6 years ago by my then flatmate Calum when I tagged along to seem them play live. It was an unusual gig, which played on the name of their album 'Man with a Movie Camera' (taken from an experimental 1929 silent documentary film of the same name by Russian director Dziga Vertov.)

The band were hidden behind a screen and played along to the film. They only revealed themselves at the end of the film when the screen lifted up. Like everything else these days though, rather than tell you about it I can just show it to you. (You might recognise the tracks from my USA trip DVD - sorry Burt, I still haven't sent you your copy!)



They sound much like their name suggests, cinematic and orchestral, but with a contemporary jazzy sort of feel, with looped samples forming the basis of a lot of the songs. The band consists of a 'conductor', if you will, who acts as a front man and plays the various looped samples, an awesome drummer, who's pretty amusing live, a cool saxophonist, a double bass player and a guitar player. They don't sing on any tracks themselves, and as a result a lot of their work is instrumental. They do, however, tend to collaborate a fair bit, bringing in male and female vocalists.

I've seen them twice since that first gig. Once a couple of years later, on my own, and earlier this year with Laura, who is also a fan. The opening act that night was a Canadian band called Patrick Watson (he's the lead singer and plays piano). They were pretty good. The lead singer came on to sing with TCO for a few tracks. Turns out he sings on a couple of songs on their latest album, Ma Fleur. In fact he sings on the opening track. Here's a live version of it. Unfortunately they didn't play this when we saw them. I think it's a beautiful song. Ironically, TCO don't play on this at all (they do on the album track). You can see them just off to the right in the shadows.