artist: The Cinematic Orchestra country of origin: UK style(s): Nu jazz, breakbeat, ambient jazz, lounge, soul essential releases: Motion (1999, Ninja Tune) Every Day (2002, Ninja Tune) Horizon e.p. (2002, Ninja Tune)

For jazz fans who don't like electronica, and electronica fans who can't stand jazz, the Cinematic Orchestra offers a reconciliation that approaches miraculous. Its mastermind is Jason Swinscoe, a DJ and longtime employee of electronic breakbeat label Ninja Tune. His love of both genres inspired him to try a new approach to the fusing of the two, which up until that time in the world of electronica usually consisted of sampling records and looping. Instead he played a selection of his collected samples to a hand-picked gathering of jazz musicians. Recording the resulting jams and then combining the two with digital production techniques, he released the resulting debut album Motion in 1999.

Motion is a new kind of mood music. It has the repetitive minimalist patterns of electronic beat music combined with the looseness and free improvisations so fundamental to live jazz. The grooves, strings and brass draw on retro soundtrack styles - Ennio Morricone, jazzy spy soundtracks, bachelor pad music - but the spectral ambience and sense of space that Swinscoe brings to his production strips away any kitsch and makes music that sounds utterly contemporary. The spare vocal bytes on this mainly instrumental album can be stunningly effective; check the female vocal loop that ricochets over the swirling, dreamy, dark groove of "Channel 1 Suite".

Remixes 1998-2000 (2000) is a fairly random and uneven collection but hardcore fans should enjoy the band's re-imaginings of jazz and nu jazz numbers from labels like Talkin Loud and ECM. The non-essential soundtrack album Man with a Movie Camera (1999, released 2003) also dates from this period and again is quite erratic. Some tracks are only slight variations of music that would appear on the upcoming album Every Day; a number of others falter when removed from images of the classic Russian silent film. However a feature-packed DVD of the movie with the new score is available and highly recommended.

The magnificent Every Day is unsurprisingly a bit more polished than Motion and the band's style is now well established. The stunning ten-minute instrumental "Burnout" is a downtempo groove based on just two short progressions of chords but its light and shade and gently playful melodies make you wish it would never end, which it does in a euphoric rush of organs, trumpets and clarinet. The title track starts out in an exploratory jazz manner, before moving into Afro vocal samples and developing the kind of flowing, celestial groove that Ninja Tune label-mate Bonobo has made his specialty. On the vocal front the presence of American soul singer Fontella Bass on two slow-burning tracks is evidence of the respect Cinematic Orchestra has won outside the electronic sphere, not that this is is a heavily electronic record anyway. A kind of encore to Every Day is the e.p. Horizon containing three excellent pieces. The highlight is the remix "Evolution II" on which the band's turntablist Mr P. (aka DJ Food) drenches the original in achingly beautiful strings and fast but feather-light polyrhythmic drums.

HOME