The Cinematic Orchestra is a British

nu jazz Nu jazz (also spelt nü jazz or known as jazztronica, or future jazz) is a genre of jazz and electronic music. The music blends jazz elements with other musical styles, such as funk, electronic music, and free improvisation. Nu jazz typically ve ...

and

downtempo Downtempo (or downbeat) is a broad label for electronic music that features an atmospheric sound and slower beats than would typically be found in dance music. Closely related to ambient music but with greater emphasis on rhythm, the style may ...

music group created in 1999 by Jason Swinscoe and later involving his music collaborator Dominic Smith. The group is signed to

independent record label An independent record label (or indie label) is a record label that operates without the funding or distribution of major record labels; they are a type of small and medium-sized enterprise, small- to medium-sized enterprise, or SME. The labels ...

Ninja Tune Ninja Tune is an independent record label based in London, with a satellite office in Los Angeles. It was founded in 1990 by musicians Matt Black and Jonathan More, known collectively as Coldcut. The label was established as an outlet for Col ...

. The Cinematic Orchestra have produced four studio albums, ''

Motion In physics, motion is when an object changes its position with respect to a reference point in a given time. Motion is mathematically described in terms of displacement, distance, velocity, acceleration, speed, and frame of reference to an o ...

'' (1999), '' Every Day'' (2002), ''

Ma Fleur ''Ma Fleur'' ("my flower" in French) is the fourth full-length release and third proper studio album by The Cinematic Orchestra, released on 7 May 2007. The North American version of the album contains 10 tracks in a different sequence from t ...

'' (2007) and '' To Believe'' (2019), and two film soundtrack albums, ''

Man with a Movie Camera ''Man with a Movie Camera'' is an experimental 1929 Soviet silent documentary film, directed by Dziga Vertov, filmed by his brother Mikhail Kaufman, and edited by Vertov's wife Yelizaveta Svilova. Kaufman also appears as the titular Man. V ...

'' (2003) and '' The Crimson Wing: Mystery of the Flamingos'' (2009). In addition to Swinscoe, the band includes former

DJ Food DJ Food is an electronic music project currently headed by Kevin Foakes (also known as Strictly Kev). It was conceived in 1990 by Jonathan More and Matt Black of Coldcut and the Ninja Tune record label. It has since included various lineups ...

member PC (Patrick Carpenter) on

turntables A phonograph, later called a gramophone, and since the 1940s a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogue reproduction of sound. The sound vibration Waveform, waveforms are recorded as correspond ...

, Luke Flowers on

drums The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...

, Tom Chant on

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to p ...

, Nick Ramm on

piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

, Stuart McCallum on

guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

, Phil France on

double bass The double bass (), also known as the upright bass, the acoustic bass, the bull fiddle, or simply the bass, is the largest and lowest-pitched string instrument, chordophone in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding rare additions ...

. Former members include Jamie Coleman (

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz musical ensemble, ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest Register (music), register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitche ...

), T. Daniel Howard (drums), Federico Ughi (drums), Alex James (piano), and Clean Sadness (

synthesizer A synthesizer (also synthesiser or synth) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis a ...

, programming). Heidi Vogel (vocals) appears as a regular collaborator. Swinscoe and Carpenter have also recorded together under the band name Neptune.

Style

The Cinematic Orchestra's sound, in both live and

studio A studio is a space set aside for creative work of any kind, including art, dance, music and theater. The word ''studio'' is derived from the , from , from ''studere'', meaning to study or zeal. Types Art The studio of any artist, esp ...

contexts, employs a live band which improvises along with a

turntablist Turntablism is the art of manipulating sounds and creating new music, sound effects, mixes and other creative sounds and beats, typically by using two or more turntables and a cross fader-equipped DJ mixer. The mixer is plugged into a PA syste ...

and electronic elements such as samples provided by Swinscoe. In their studio releases Swinscoe will often

remix A remix, also sometimes called reorchestration or rework, is a piece of media which has been altered or contorted from its original state by adding, removing, or changing pieces of the item. A song, piece of artwork, book, poem, or photograph ca ...

the live source material to produce a combination of live jazz

improvisation Improvisation, often shortened to improv, is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. The origin of the word itself is in the Latin "improvisus", which literally means un-foreseen. Improvis ...

with

electronica Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that came to prominence in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mos ...

, such that it is difficult to tell where the improvisation ends and the production begins.

History

Swinscoe first formed a group called ''Crabladder'' in 1990, whilst studying

Fine Art In European academic traditions, fine art (or, fine arts) is made primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from popular art, decorative art or applied art, which also either serve some practical function (such as ...

at Cardiff College, releasing one official single on his own ''Power Tools'' label. The Cinematic Orchestra's debut album, ''

,'' was released in 1999. The critical success of that album led to them being asked to perform at the Director's Guild Awards ceremony for the presentation of the Lifetime Achievement Award to film director

Stanley Kubrick Stanley Kubrick (; July 26, 1928 – March 7, 1999) was an American filmmaker and photographer. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, Stanley Kubrick filmography, his films were nearly all adaptations of novels or sho ...

. The band were asked by the organisers of the

Porto Porto (), also known in English language, English as Oporto, is the List of cities in Portugal, second largest city in Portugal, after Lisbon. It is the capital of the Porto District and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto c ...

European City of Culture 2001 festival to write a new

score SCORE may refer to: *SCORE (software), a music scorewriter program * SCORE (television), a weekend sports service of the defunct Financial News Network *SCORE! Educational Centers *SCORE International, an offroad racing organization *Sarawak Corrido ...

Dziga Vertov Dziga Vertov (born David Abelevich Kaufman; – 12 February 1954) was a Soviet pioneer documentary film and newsreel director, as well as a cinema theorist. His filming practices and theories influenced the cinéma vérité style of documentary ...

's classic 1929

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

film ''

,'' to be performed live in accompaniment with a showing of the

silent film A silent film is a film without synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, w ...

. The work differed from the band's usual compositions due to its live performance, ruling out the post production work that was present on ''Motion.'' The Cinematic Orchestra toured the work and later released it as an album. Many of the compositions originally created for that album, ''

,'' were later adapted from live form (adding in vocal tracks and electronic elements, among other changes) for their next album, '' Every Day''. It reached #54 in the

UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is the United Kingdom's industry-recognised national record chart for album, albums. Entries are ranked by sales and audio streaming. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the O ...

in May 2002. In 2006, the Cinematic Orchestra created a cover version of

Radiohead Radiohead are an English rock band formed in Abingdon-on-Thames, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in 1985. The band members are Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards); brothers Jonny Greenwood (guitar, keyboards, other instruments) and Colin Gre ...

's "

Exit Music (For a Film) ''OK Computer'' is the third studio album by the English rock band Radiohead, released on 21 May 1997. With their producer, Nigel Godrich, Radiohead recorded most of ''OK Computer'' in their rehearsal space in Oxfordshire and the historic m ...

" that appeared on an album titled '' Exit Music: Songs with Radio Heads.'' In this piece the band slowed down the tempo of the original, divided the timbre into four sections beginning with saxophone, to the classical guitar, to the electric guitar, ending the piece with the same simple acoustic guitar rhythm as the original. The Cinematic Orchestra released the album ''

'' in May 2007. Several songs feature Patrick Watson,

Fontella Bass Fontella Marie Bass (; July 3, 1940 – December 26, 2012) was an American R&B and soul singer-songwriter best known for her number-one R&B hit " Rescue Me" in 1965. She was nominated for a Grammy Award twice. Early life Fontella Bass was bor ...

, or

Lou Rhodes Lou Rhodes is an English singer and songwriter from Manchester, now living in Wiltshire. In addition to providing vocals and lyrics for the band Lamb, Rhodes has released four solo albums: '' Beloved One'', '' Bloom'' and '' One Good Thing'' a ...

on vocals, with Rhodes and Watson sharing vocals on one song. The Cinematic Orchestra recorded the soundtrack to the

Disneynature Disneynature is an independent film studio that specializes in the production of nature documentary films for Walt Disney Studios, a division of Disney Entertainment, which is owned by The Walt Disney Company. Disneynature was founded on April ...

film '' The Crimson Wing: Mystery of the Flamingos,'' released in France in December 2008 (originally as ''Les ailes pourpres: Le mystère des flamants).'' The score was produced by the band and Steve McLaughlin. The score was performed live with the

London Metropolitan Orchestra The urban culture of London concerns the music, museums, festivals, and lifestyle within London, the capital city of the United Kingdom. The city is known for its theatre quarter, and its West End of London, West End theatre district has given ...

Union Chapel, Islington Union Chapel is a working Congregational church, live-entertainment venue and charity drop-in centre for the homeless in Islington, London, England. Built in the late 19th century in the Gothic revival style, the church is a Listed building, G ...

in September 2009 and won the award for Best Original Score for a Documentary Film at the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival in

Wyoming Wyoming ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States, Western United States. It borders Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho t ...

, USA in October 2009.

invited the Cinematic Orchestra to perform at the twentieth anniversary gala performance of the label at the

Royal Albert Hall The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall on the northern edge of South Kensington, London, England. It has a seating capacity of 5,272. Since the hall's opening by Queen Victoria in 1871, the world's leading artists from many performance genres ...

in November 2010. In 2011, the Cinematic Orchestra commissioned a series of compositions for avant-garde short films that were performed at the

Barbican Centre The Barbican Centre is a performing arts centre in the Barbican Estate of the City of London, England, and the largest of its kind in Europe. The centre hosts classical and contemporary music concerts, theatre performances, film screenings a ...

under the auspices of its curating a series entitled "In Motion" (also featuring

Dorian Concept Oliver Thomas Johnson (born 16 September 1984), known by the alias Dorian Concept, is an Austrian composer, music producer and keyboardist whose work draws on an eclectic variety of sources including Modal jazz, modal and free jazz, funk, Hip ho ...

with saxophonist Tom Chant, Grey Reverend, and Austin Peralta). It subsequently released the album '' In Motion #1'' in 2012. In 2015, they created their own version of Melanie De Biasio's track "I'm Gonna Leave You" for the album ''

Gilles Peterson Gilles Jérôme Moehrle MBE (; born 28 September 1964), better known as Gilles Peterson (), is a broadcaster, DJ, record label and festival owner. He is renowned for his genre-defying approach to music with jazz at its core. From this base he ...

presents - No Deal Remixed''. Their fourth studio album, '' To Believe,'' was released in March 2019.

Song appearances

" To Build a Home", from the album ''Ma Fleur'' and featuring the vocals of the Canadian singer-songwriter Patrick Watson, has been used extensively in film and television. In 2008, the song was used for the

Chivas Regal Chivas Regal () is a blended Scotch whisky produced by the Chivas Brothers subsidiary of Pernod Ricard in Scotland. History Chivas Regal was created in 1909 by Chivas Brothers Master Blender Charles Stewart Howard as a 25-year-old luxury wh ...

''Live with Chivalry'' advertisement. It has also been featured in the films ''

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger, more populous island of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, the country. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is the southernmost island in ...

'', '' The Tree'', ''Polytechnique'', and the 2011 shorts ''Rapha Continental'' and ''This Is Brighton''. It was also featured in August 2013 for an extended trailer of the upcoming third series of ''

Homeland A homeland is a place where a national or ethnic identity has formed. The definition can also mean simply one's country of birth. When used as a proper noun, the Homeland, as well as its equivalents in other languages, often has ethnic natio ...

'' on

Showtime Showtime or Show Time may refer to: Film * ''Showtime'' (film), a 2002 American action/comedy film * ''Showtime'' (video), a 1995 live concert video by Blur Television Networks and channels * Showtime Networks, a division of Paramount Global w ...

. It appeared in the 2009 documentary ''Ingredients: Who's Your Farmer?'' about the

local food movement Local food is food that is produced within a short distance of where it is consumed, often accompanied by a social structure and supply chain different from the large-scale supermarket system. Local food (or locavore) movements aim to conne ...

. The song's slow, melancholy melody provided an easy, smooth transition from the first half of the documentary to the next. In 2012, the song was used in a video named "The Most Astounding Fact", in which

science communicator Science communication encompasses a wide range of activities that connect science and society. Common goals of science communication include informing non-experts about scientific findings, raising the public awareness of and interest in sci ...

Neil deGrasse Tyson Neil deGrasse Tyson ( or ; born October 5, 1958) is an American astrophysics, astrophysicist, author, and science communication, science communicator. Tyson studied at Harvard University, the University of Texas at Austin, and Columbia Univ ...

answers a question posed by a ''Time'' magazine reader. The video was edited by

freelance ''Freelance'' (sometimes spelled ''free-lance'' or ''free lance''), ''freelancer'', or ''freelance worker'', are terms commonly used for a person who is self-employed and not necessarily committed to a particular employer long-term. Freelance w ...

videographer Videography involves capturing moving images on electronic media (such as: videotape, direct to disk recording, or solid state storage), and can include streaming media. It encompasses both video production and post-production methods. Histori ...

Max Schlickenmeyer who posted it to

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

, where it garnered more than 9 million views. In 2013, the song was used in an advertisement for

Guinness Guinness () is a stout that originated in the brewery of Arthur Guinness at Guinness Brewery, St. James's Gate, Dublin, Ireland, in the 18th century. It is now owned by the British-based Multinational corporation, multinational alcoholic bever ...

featuring wheelchair basketballers. A shorter version of the song "That Home", with a slightly different composition, has also been used on occasion, such as an episode of ''

Teen Wolf ''Teen Wolf'' is a 1985 American coming-of-age comedy film directed by Rod Daniel and written by Jeph Loeb and Matthew Weisman. Michael J. Fox stars as the title character, a high school student whose ordinary life is changed when he discover ...

'', in an episode of '' Suits'', in the trailer for the 2011 film ''

Another Earth ''Another Earth'' is a 2011 American science fiction drama film directed by Mike Cahill and starring Brit Marling, William Mapother, and Robin Lord Taylor. It premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival in January, and was given a limited the ...

'' and in the

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting * Aliw Broadcasting Corporation, Philippine broadcast company * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial American ...

drama '' Defying Gravity''. It also featured in the season seven finale of the

FOX Foxes are small-to-medium-sized omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull; upright, triangular ears; a pointed, slightly upturned snout; and a long, bushy tail ("brush"). Twelve species ...

dance competition ''

So You Think You Can Dance ''So You Think You Can Dance'' is a franchise of reality television shows in which contestants compete in dance. The first series of the franchise, created by '' Idols'' producers Simon Fuller and Nigel Lythgoe, premiered in July 2005 and has ...

''. It was also featured as one of the dance performance songs in the 2012 film ''

Step Up Revolution ''Step Up Revolution'' (released in some countries as ''Step Up 4: Miami Heat'') is a 2012 American dance film directed by Scott Speer and written by Amanda Brody. The film is the sequel to '' Step Up 3D'' (2010) and the fourth installment in ...

''.

Discography

Studio albums

Soundtrack albums

Live albums

Remix albums

Mix albums

Other albums

Singles

References

External links

* * * * *
The Cinematic Orchestra
at

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cinematic Orchestra, The Ninja Tune artists Acid jazz musicians English electronic music groups English jazz ensembles Musical groups established in 1999 Electronic music groups from London Downtempo musicians Nu jazz musicians 1999 establishments in England