Planet Notion - Music - Features

Home

Music

Live

Lifestyle

My Planet

Who the f**k?

60 seconds

Features

Albums

Downloads

Change Background

You are here -> Music / Features

Friday, 16 May, 2008

PLANETNOTION TELEVISION!

INFO

You are browsing our Features, they're long so get comfy cos it's a long time till you get your summer ice cream kid-o.

RSS FEEDS

Subscribe Feeds

Klute

‘The whole DIY concept in music, to me, always meant doing it on your own,’ – doing things according to his own style is exactly what Klute has been up to ever since his previous incarnation as Tommy Stupid in cult eighties thrash band, The Stupids. Going solo has suited the beat-punk well. Whether releasing underground tracks via his Override moniker during the mid-90s, or creating emotive anthems like 2002’s ‘Part of Me’, Tom Withers is still burning as one of the leading lights in British drum n bass. With his dazzling fifth album, ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’, cementing this reputation as one of the most innovative producers to dabble in electronic dancefloor music, Klute talks us through this latest release, the state of modern music, and his penchant for Viking metal bands. — When asked about his approach to ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes,’ Klute readily agrees about its continuation of the common themes found in much of his output. Melancholy melodies, skittering, complex rhythms, epic synth work and ambient backgrounds are all present and correct. While disc one’s brooding industrial opener ‘174 BPM’ wouldn’t sound out of place as the creeping prelude to a heavy metal album, ‘The Struggle’ revisits the melodic flourishes and faintly sinister vocal samples that are his trademark. Later on the same disc the tumbling beauty of ‘Hell Hath no Fury,’ with its fuzzed-up chords and searing strings, gives way to the LTJ Bukem-like liquid riches and crisp drum patterns of the ominously titled ‘We Control The Vertical.’ And the magic is all in the DIY action; ‘It’s not as if I hired a symphony orchestra and went to Vienna to compose my drum n bass opera!’ explains the softly spoken Mr. Withers from his North London studio. ‘It’s more of a continuation of the last two LPs – it almost feels like the conclusion to a trilogy, or the development of one body of work.’ Incidentally, ‘Toiler’ judders along with such drum-led urgency that you can almost feel the weight of Klute’s repertoire impacting upon it. For the listener, ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ is also a full-blooded animal of an album that demands you keep pace with its rhythmical rampage. — The new album may not be a Viennese opera, but it encapsulates how throughout his career, Klute has created, developed and twisted his own inimitable style to take in influences ranging from classical music to garage punk, whilst retaining a hard-edged, highly mixable aesthetic that appeals to both the thousands of drum n bass heads filling raves every weekend, as well as the more mature, ex-Blue Note-visiting home listeners. While other big name producers have been content ploughing out impact-led bangers, Tom Withers has stuck to the punk ethics of his youth, delivering collections of music rooted in the drum n bass tradition, yet also experimenting with all manner of tempos in the process. — Famed for his double CD albums (the first disc drum n bass, and the second exploring alternative beat patterns), with ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’, Klute has used the two-headed format to showcase his talent for creating deep and brooding techno. ‘The approach is always geared towards dancing, but the main difference with this album is that I went for a specific techno approach with a 4/4 beat,’ Klute explains. ‘I have a peculiar idea of what is funky. I find myself jigging about to stuff other people don’t like.’ This is more than evident in ‘Toiler,’ a punk enthused roller with fret-scratching guitars and a mumbled cockney vocal that could be seen as a tribute to The Stupids - minus the lyrics about the elephant man, of course! Still, Klute’s old outfit had a reputation for irreverent song-lines, and electronic music from the man alone tends to be layered with curious vocals. How would he feel about making purely instrumental tunes? ‘I like to leave the music open to contradiction... I’m always listening to different sounds, not lyrics, and when I was 15 or 16 I’d hide behind The Stupids’ lyrics, but I don’t want to do that again. It’s difficult to find the right way to make your statement, and instrumentals are definitely something I’d like to move towards...’ — When I suggest that for many fans of The Stupids, drum n’ bass would be seen as far away as possible from thrash, hardcore and punk, Klute is in no two minds as to why: ‘People from England always say that, but you go abroad and they see an obvious connection. Outside of the UK, a lot of people come to drum n bass through indie music. A lot of British people are born into the whole dance culture we have here, so they see drum n bass as purely dance music.’ With his alternative history and approach, perhaps Klute is the producer to enlighten us. The man’s very own Commercial Suicide imprint is now in its sixth banging year and shows no sign of slowing. Klute continues: ‘I’m trying to show people they don’t have to follow just one sound. I like to bring a cerebral approach to my music that doesn’t tell the audience what to do, unlike a lot of modern dance music.’ — And so we return to the DIY imperative. Perhaps its very title ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes,’ is a message to us to enjoy and interpret the record in our own way – and whether that’s you sat in your bedroom wearing nothing but your headphones and your birthday suit, so be it! ‘ THE EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHES ’ IS OUT NOW ( COMMERCIAL SUICIDE )

tags: | klute | metal music | part of me | the emperors new clothes | commercial suicide

Water under the bridge 2007 tour

Water under the bridge 2007 tour

Dodgy is made up of three members Nigel Clark, Andy Miller and Mathew Priest. They will take to the stage together again in November 2007 after almost a decade apart. "I’m made up that we’re doing this tour, I chose to leave Dodgy at a time when many thought I was mad .... Perhaps I was mad. But I’m not now.” Nigel Clark During this time apart, Nigel has been recording new material and nurturing young local talent in the recording studio which he built in the Midlands, Mathew drums with a number of bands including Electric Soft Parade, Yellow Moon Band and Ian McNabb and manages acts such as Misty’s Big Adventure, and Andy has become a total guitar barbarian playing and writing for his own group Hey Gravity. Over Dodgy’s six-year rise to fame they released three albums and 12 Top 40 singles, including 3 Top 10s and the Top 5 hit ‘Good Enough’, still a staple of Radio playlists. In 1996 Dodgy sold out the Brixton Academy for two nights in a row and were awarded an unprecedented 90-minute Saturday evening slot on the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury Festival. The English trio began their climb to fame in 1992, releasing three singles on their own Bostin Records label. Later that year they signed to A&M Records, around the same time as they inked a publishing deal after two A&R men battled for their signatures in a pub video football competition. The partnership with A&M generated three albums of sparkling indie pop, The Dodgy Album (1993), Homegrown (1994) and Free Peace Sweet (1996), selling over a million copies worldwide. When Dodgy first formed, they started the Dodgy Club so that once a month they were guaranteed a sold out gig. A dedicated touring band - in one year early on their career they played almost 300 shows – Dodgy built a devoted and loyal fan base, and tried to involve their audience in a live experience that was more than just watching a group over the rim of a pint glass. Their positive attitude and summery songs made Dodgy the perfect festival band, and it was such a natural habitat for the trio that in 1996 they conceived their very own Big Top Tour. Live performance was always integral to the Dodgy experience. It was the desire to return to this festival vibe that was a strong contributing factor to the band’s reunion, playing songs such as Staying Out For The Summer, So Let Me Go Far, Making The Most Of, Lovebirds, Water Under The Bridge, CSN&Y cover Find The Cost Of Freedom, In A Room and the epic Grassman. The pull is so strong that even original keyboard player Richard Payne is flying back from his new home in Australia especially for the tour. Mon 5 Nov Glasgow ABC1 0870 169 0100 Tue 6 Nov Sheffield Leadmill 0870 010 4555 Thur 8 Nov Birmingham Academy 2 0870 771 2000 Fri 9 Nov Manchester Academy 2 0161 832 1111 Sat 10 Nov Liverpool Carling Academy 0870 771 2000 Mon 12 Northampton Roadmender 01604 604020 Tue 13 Nov Bristol Academy 0870 771 2000 Thur 15 Nov London Shepherd’s Bush Empire 0871 2200 260 / www.gigsandtours.com For further information contact Fiona Clarke (078 5555 1876 – fiona@excesspress.co.uk ) or Jayne Houghton ( jayne@excesspress.co.uk ), for regional contact Jack Thunder (07838 102 990 - jack@excesspress.co.uk)

tags: | dodgy | water under the bridge tour | nigel clark | andy miller | mathew priest | more...

Dub Pistols

Suited, two-tone booted, and fuelled by Jack and Marlboros, Dub Pistols duo Barry Ashworth and Jason O’Bryan are being surprisingly compliant for Notion’s photographer. Despite warnings from their agent that early morning press sessions aren’t their thing, Barry relaxes in a leather throne, contentedly surveying these suitably stylish surroundings through tortishell shades, while Jason revisits the bar. Touted, amongst other things, as ‘intergalactic hip hop,’ the Dub Pistols’ new LP ‘Speakers And Tweeters’ enlists the MC majesty of Rodney P – he’s running late – while also spanning ska, punk, reggae, techno and indie. What’s more, legendary Specials’ frontman Terry Hall offered up ‘Gangsters’ for a DP revamping, while lending his distinctive vocal style to no less than four tunes on this accomplished and lively album. Once the shoot is through, Rodney wrestles back into his civilian gear while Barry jokes that with his suit being a tad tight, the MC ‘didn’t want to come sit next to you and squeak!’ ‘Yeah,’ Rodney affirms, ‘I’d lose cool points for that!’ If ‘cool points’ can be racked up for the number of cult references and covers a crew can cram into a record, then these guys are comfortably on the rocks. Thick and fast banter continues as the trio get comfy – it’s clear that some of this boisterous energy has been bottled by ‘Speakers And Tweeters,’ with its upfront attitude and party-brewing beats. Another round arrives and it’s time to get to business. LET’S START WITH THE RISE OF DUB STEP. HAVE YOU BEEN PAYING ATTENTION? BARRY: Those guys are so worried about protecting their music that they won’t even release records! They take taxis too, so that they don’t have to pass each other’s territory... RODNEY: I go to Forward at Plastic People, it’s a local thing, real stomping music, but I wouldn’t play it in my house! Maybe if I was pissed off, under a red light in the corner... HOW ABOUT GRIME AS A SCENE? RODNEY: I like the energy, I’m a bit too old for it, though. If I was 19 I’d be the big man on the grime scene, I’d be the fucking man! HOW MUCH WEIGHT DOES THE ‘DUB’ ACTUALLY CARRY WITH THE DUB PISTOLS? JASON: We use loads of dub, it’s definitely at the core... BARRY: The ‘pistols’ bit is important too – that’s for our punk attitude! RODNEY: With the dub, it’s not just old reggae, it’s making it a bassline and doing something different with it. WHY ‘SPEAKERS AND TWEETERS’? BARRY: You know what that was? After 2 years of making and thinking about an album, getting to the last week, sat in the pub, and not having a title and then... RODNEY: Eureka ! JASON: It’s one of the edgiest tracks on the record, a paranoid affair! IT’S PERFECTLY TIMED TO BE A SUMMER SOUNDTRACK... BARRY: I think with reggae and dub, people naturally think of summer...And so from ‘Peaches,’ to breasts, to Rodney! He wrote that lyric in an hour. RODNEY: You gotta get in where you fit in, know what I mean? And yeah, we don’t function well in the cold and the dark... BARRY: Everything sounds better in the summer, looks better in the summer. I get away for winter, have Christmas on the beach... RODNEY: Bah humbug! I hear that... BARRY: We’re not for dull winter people, but an English fucking load of people, standing in a festival field, that’s my definition of a good time! England is the only place where complete mayhem rules, I love it! I’M SURE YOU’LL BE LIVING IT UP IN STYLE! SO ARE YOU ALL SINGLE? BARRY: (reluctantly) No, we’re not single... RODNEY: Well, come back to me on that one! BACK TO THE LP, WHAT A MASSIVE HONOUR WORKING WITH TERRY HALL... JASON: He’s the godfather of the scene, we grew up with him. It’s been six years now since we’ve been able to work with him, to have him endorsing what we do is just amazing. Terry is a big influence on what we do... BARRY: And then to have him in your frontroom - which is where we mostly recorded the album – he sings you down effortlessly, that voice! He’s one of those guys that gets cooler with age, everyone adores him. RODNEY: That Specials album was when I was at primary school, I went wearing a pork pie hat because of him! And now, working with him, I try to hide it but I’m like a little kid, I’m like this is a blessing, this is fucking unbelievable! DO YOU RECKON THAT ‘GANGSTERS’ HAS EVEN MORE RELEVANCE TODAY? BARRY: Oh, definitely. Terry actually suggested we have it on the album as a Specials tune to do live. I was worried, like is this a bit too fucking close to the bone here, but Rob Da Bank said we had to use it. JASON: You wouldn’t think it but the original actually didn’t have horns on it, we brought it up to date but added a more conventional ska vibe... ANY OTHER TUNES YOU’D LIKE TO FLAG UP FROM ‘SPEAKERS AND TWEETERS’? RODNEY: It’s about ‘Peaches’ for me. I probably wouldn’t have written a tune like that for myself, but after working with these guys, my new album is going to be a little different. Tits and arse, always a good subject! But I didn’t want to take it too far from the original, to keep that like Benny Hill, tongue in- cheek vibe. BARRY: Terry does the choruses on that tune, too. But I love all of the tunes of the album; the problem was leaving stuff off! And from Blade (‘Speed Of Light’) to Rodney, all of the lyrics are really thoughtful. RODNEY: Yup, there’s no ‘shoot you up,’ no mass murdering, no platinum chains, no dogs on housing estates – an ‘acoustic’ kind of hip hop! JASON: We nearly had to take the Blondie cover (‘Rapture’) off at the last minute, but thankfully it got sorted. We added an Arabian sounding melody and made it 25 bpm faster, then Terry agreed to sing it in the pub, he ran with it! Another good thing was adding an English brass band to a hip hop track, and using the melodica, harmonica, double bass, whatever we fancied. HAVE YOU ANTICIPATED A NEW GENERATION OF LISTENERS ENJOYING YOUR STYLE? RODNEY: You’ve got to give the kids credit for knowing their shit these days. JASON: I’ve got an 11-year-old who is really into two tone, it’s just the way he’s gone. He came on to do ‘Gangsters’ with Terry Hall at last year’s V Festival. Imagine that! BARRY: We came out with this underground breaks thing and were everybody’s darling, then it was like we were the sound of Norman (Cook)’s jock strap! Now we’re just doing what we like and if the kids like it, that’s great. HOW DID YOU ARRIVE AT SUNDAY BEST AS THE LABEL TO BE WITH NOW? JASON: Everyone there is passionate about music. BARRY: We had offers that were better financially, but especially with Bestival and how open to all music it is, this was right for us. I actually jumped in Rob (Da Bank)’s car on the way back from their ‘Judge A Band,’ competition, and made him listen to the album all the way home! ‘ SPEAKERS AND TWEETERS ’ IS OUT NOW ( SUNDAY BEST )

tags: | dub pistols | barry ashworth | jason o bryan | grim | speakers and tweeters

The sound catchers. Various artists.

The sound catchers. Various artists.

Ever wondered what would happen if you got some disparate artists all working in and around the same genre into the same room for a State of The Musical Nation discussion? Notion did. After listening to DJ Vadim’s staggeringly diverse album ‘The Soundcatcher,’ we invited the man himself down to the pub, along with some other carefully selected musicians. We invited the famously eloquent British rapper, Ty, primarily for his love of mixing things up. To bring order to the proceedings, who better than one of the grand matriarchs of reggae, Dawn Penn? Add to that Suffolk’s own soulstress, Alice Russell, and the flagrantly independent Omar. We thought we had ourselves the ingredients for a rather serious discussion. What we did discover was what life is like in the trenches for artists making great music independently. Here’s what we and the wallflowers heard... DOES THE CURRENT TENDENCY TOWARDS DISPOSABILITY IN MUSIC MEAN THAT IT STILL HAS THE POWER TO ADDRESS SERIOUS ISSUES? DJ VADIM: Definitely - ALICE RUSSELL: I think so. - DJV: Well, look at that song by Eminem, where he was talking about Bush and stuff. Obviously the whole media and TV are in bed with Bush and the Republican government, and the biggest selling rap artist in America has come out against it. It was just a huge controversy and people were saying how wrong he was, on TV, in forums, everywhere... He made a song about the current state of affairs in America and look what happened. DO YOU THINK IT LED TO ANY SORT OF MASSIVE CHANGE FOR PEOPLE? DJV: I think he is part of a movement that made people think more. DO PEOPLE NEED TO BE MADE TO THINK MORE? OMAR: Things like Pop Idol have really pushed the element of mediocrity in regards to pop music, and audiences are coming to accept the idea of being told they’re that dumb. - A.R: It’s just plasticness everywhere. It’s all about getting a bit of rawness instead of the overly pre-meditated stuff we hear so much of. Some people are so well packaged and thought out. That style of doing things, I hate it. - O: I loved it when So Solid Crew came out of nowhere. I loved that because you could just see people were like..... - A.R: ‘What the fuck?’ - O: Like the way they said that Lily Allen thing was because of myspace, and even Gnarls Barkley. The way it’s been sold to us was as loads of internet downloads, but the reality was an office full of people working away... 200,000 HITS ON MYSPACE DOESN’T NECESSARILY MEAN MORE SALES... O: I want to testify to that! - Ty: Hallelujah! - DAWN PENN: It’s almost like a separate universe that yeah you might be successful in but does it relate to the real world? - A.R: That’s where you hope truth will out. It’s do your thing, do it right. Don’t sit down and just hope it will come out. BUT WE’VE GOT SOME GREAT ARTISTS HERE LIKE PLAN B, FOREIGN BEGGARS AND MANY MORE WHO NEVER QUITE BREAK THROUGH IN THE WAY THAT SOME PEOPLE THINK THEY SHOULD... D.P: It’s a problem if you’re an English artist rapping like you’re from America. I have no time for that. I have no idea why they’re doing this. Someone like Plan B might be lucky in that case. - O: The problem we have is a ceiling in regards to how far you can go, and you get to a certain point, where there’s a bottleneck. One of them is Radio One and Jo Wiley. If she plays your stuff, other people are going to pick it up, and if she doesn’t, they don’t, and it just shows how tight it all is. - T: But don’t you find that we’ve got this opportunity now because of satellite TV, satellite radio, internet radio, myspace, and all this other stuff, that there’s so many other platforms for you to be able to promote your music? Fuck Radio One, fuck XFM, fuck all these people that want us to get onto their playlist! - A.R: It’s like a crazy little club, isn’t it? - T: There’s no control over a lot of these other platforms though, and it is a little bit harder in a sense, but, at the same time I’m here and a lot of music we listen to now just doesn’t seem compromised to me. Before, it was so totally compromised, someone used to say ‘play that’ and ‘it’s going to go on this program at this time,’ whereas now people are just doing what the fuck they want, you know what I mean? And some of it’s going to be cack of course, but there’s going to be a lot of good shit there too. D.P: I think if you have some people who can open a door for you, you’re fine. If you know no-one, that’s it. But like I say, I don’t have a label, I’m not signed to Atlantic anymore – and I’m not talking about them per se – but sometimes I see these people on TV and I wonder why their labels think they’re going to sell millions of records. There’s people who can’t even sell a thousand copies: they have the sounds, but they don’t have the money to get it out there. DO YOU THINK PART OF THE PROBLEM IS THAT WE ARE FOREMOST A GUITAR MUSIC COUNTRY? THE DECISION HAS ALREADY BEEN MADE AS TO WHAT WE’RE PRIMARILY GOING TO BE HEARING... T: Radio One is a dinosaur man, they were controlling it. - O: Listen, shit’s bigger for Radio 2 now than it is for Radio One. This isn’t a Radio One slagging fest, the point we’re making is bigger. If we’re going to talk about all these artists that should be bigger then we need to talk about the force that’s actually saying no. And a lot of people don’t know that’s there. I know a lot of these artists in different fields all have the same story. They ran up to the wall, and the door closed but the door still had a hand, shaking theirs and saying, ‘I like you though, I do like you, but can you do that thing that you did 6 months ago now?’ - DJV: You know what, one thing I’m going to say is that living in America, coming here, I’ve met so many UK artists who don’t want to do interviews, don’t want to do shows, don’t want to do shit, but they want to be selling like Eminem and I don’t understand it. Being in Brooklyn you see people working their ass off - groups like Atmosphere selling 200,000 albums independently out the back of their house is amazing. You’ve got to be professional. T: You got to work. - DJV: It doesn’t matter if you’re rapping, singing, playing the guitar. Why is indie so big in England? Because those bands work like hell. You look at all these little bands and they’re doing like 40 shows a month, doing all the universities, doing everything. Look at UK hip hop artists, how many shows are they doing? - T: I’ve actually had an interest in my records because of people - expatriates living in the States and people being aware of Ty - but it has absolutely nothing to do with the music industry. - O: There’s another strange phenomenon there as well, because I assumed you go to the States and it’s a black thing. - T: No, no, no... O: Straight away there’s a brick wall in my face. It’s a bit weird. D.P: I think that in The States they are racist. I was born in Jamaica but I have roots. There’s a scenario where they’re trying to make out that dark skin people don’t have any soul in them, and that soul actually came from The States, singing with feeling. You’re born American, you’re expected to sing that way. In this country the powers that be are taking the people that can do it and putting a different colour scheme on people that can’t do it. T: But also the actual genre of hip hop has changed a little bit. The thing with hip hop music is that when it morphs into a particular thing and the mainstream accept it as that, it’s very hard to do anything different. And that’s what we do experience as musicians – frustration. — At this point Ty had to go pick up his mum from hospital and everyone else decided to start eating the sandwiches we’d brought. Suddenly I felt as if I knew what Ty meant about frustration. The expected course of events had morphed into something unrecognizable, but no less interesting. Even creative types like to get together and talk shop, bitch about the employer and get it off their chests before heading back to the front. We’re just glad we gave them the opportunity to do so before it started encroaching on their work.

tags: | dj vadim | dawn penn | ty | alice | russel | omar | myspace | radio one | radio two

The Cinematic Orchestra

The Cinematic Orchestra

Audiovisual alchemy, multi-lingual instruments and the scattered scenery of an imagined film? It could only be Jason Swinscoe and his Cinematic Orchsetra. The man on a mission to make records that are ‘not just music for music’s sake,’ returns with ‘Ma Fleur,’ a stripped-down symphony bearing several storytellers and a message of hope. Piano, strings, saxophone, drums and vocal parts delicately interplay in this minimal masterpiece, which is Jason’s soundtrack for the cycles of life: loss encountered and love fulfilled. Such abstract and universal themes are Jason’s focus; ‘self-indulgent’ records are trivial for an artist and producer who relies upon the medium of music for mass communication, for unification. For him, music should be inclusive and wide-reaching, just as opening track ‘To Build a Home,’ carries the line: ‘A place where I don’t feel alone.’ The vocal ‘I’ is always a byword for ‘You’ or ‘We’ with The Cinematic Orchestra; music is a magical soundscape where self and other are one. ‘I build a home / For you, for me, / Until you disappear / From me, from you...’ runs newcomer Patrick Watson’s tentative lyric, as the piano melody mounts and stirs, while core TCO member Phil France’s double bass provides the sturdy backbone upon which this beautiful tune hangs. The record itself is supported by a screenplay Jason commissioned to a like-minded old friend. ‘Ma Fleur’’s script is inhabited by three or four characters, whose individual worlds ‘collide to create new universes,’ and whose rich and vividly felt emotions steer the movements of this symphony. Taking inspiration from directors like Tarantino and the experimental time scale of ‘Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind’ (2004), the chronology of the record’s script can be ‘broken up,’ so that the various phases of human life make sense as a whole. This holistic approach in turn corresponds to The Cinematic Orchestra’s wider and enduring project, to which one line from ‘Ma Fleur’ especially relates: ‘Wrap yourself around the world.’ The band’s juxtaposition of ‘cinematic’ and ‘orchestra’ is their self-proclaiming manifesto that the music they make ought to simultaneously conjure or suggest a visual landscape. So tunes have to be kept both relatively impersonal and stridently open: these are neutral compositions for the listener to ‘imaginate upon,’ as Jason explains it. I wonder aloud whether the sometime fine art student and band leader is one of those rare people who experiences synaesthaesia, or ‘colour hearing.’ Can he ever hear a piece of music with a blank canvass in his mind, or listen to a note without his vision becoming awash with a certain hue? ‘I do both, really,’ he says with a mischievous glimmer in his eye. Presumably, to ‘wrap yourself around the world’ is to experience it fully and meaningfully, as a part of nature rather than part of human destiny. Eyes and ears would perceive this integrated universe as one; sights and sounds would work in a symbiotic fashion, while the ego melts away. By reflection, so-called ‘mystical’ experiences that have been reported through time often involve the subject describing being wrapped in light or a flame coloured cloud, whilst hearing enchanting music. And so we return to Jason’s original ambition, to imbue his work with that ‘spiritual’ quality where life adds up, in all of its hectic elements and heady sensations – just like the young protagonist of ‘Ma Fleur,’ we ‘Climb the tree to see the world,’ and are at peace with it. Legendary ‘Rescue Me’ soul singer Fontella Bass urges the second tune along with her ‘How near / How far / Tell me how far,’ refrain, as Luke Flowers’ drums arrive for the first time, a subtly added texture to the lingering parts of piano and double bass. Jason remembers his stubbornness at the time of producing this track; he was determined not to use any of the same collaborators from 2002’s ‘Everyday,’ but it ‘just wasn’t happening’ with the other vocalists he recruited. At the time, Fontella was very ill, but ‘she wanted to make music, like she always has done, not just sit and convalesce.’ While Patrick provides the tones of youth, Fontella is the voice of age and experience, her ‘near’ and ‘far’ seemingly interchangeable with ‘Ma Fleur’’s preoccupation with the themes of love and loss. She sings a melody that tremours and undulates, so that the weight of significance between ‘near’ and ‘far’ shifts, just like the ebb and flow of human relationships both within the universe of the record, and in the real world outside. Jason confirms that the title ‘Ma Fleur’ is indeed indicative of a fragile token passed from one lover to another; a simple language that encodes so much and crystallises a moment to be savoured. As for the interaction between The Cinematic Orchestra’s individual instrumentalists, Jason felt no pressure to ‘include all of the band in all of the tracks.’ While the celebrated, beat-driven ‘Everyday’ used complex harmonical and rhythmical structures, he believes that ‘things got lost.’ Here, the listener is alive to the suggestiveness of repeated motifs, and the ‘orchestration between the selected instruments,’ rather than grand, sweeping arrangements, is what resonates and yields energy. Comparable with Jason taking inspiration from raw and spontaneous human action like ‘seeing a couple hugging in the street,’ and Patrick’s lyric: ‘Held on as tightly / As you held onto me,’ it is the intimate movements and exchanges between the instruments that is crucial, not the bombastic effect of a fully fledged orchestra. So ‘Ma Fleur’ sees the band employing a new technique of ‘taking things away’; the value of understatement that is perhaps an effect of Jason’s immersion in Parisian culture. The contemplative, ‘romantic’ character of the city is something he acknowledges as an influence upon the record. Becoming uninspired by the music he was making from East London, Jason moved to Paris , where ‘Ma Fleur’ began to take shape. However, the record was completed amid the ‘growth’ of New York , where Jason has now settled. He found the perfect location to take photographs for the various scenes of ‘Ma Fleur’ along the Rockaway Peninsula in Brooklyn . To compliment the unified vision of the world ‘Ma Fleur’ projects, it was important to find a landscape where all of the scenes could be accommodated, not just random ‘meaningless’ scraps of the city, cemented together to synthesise a whole. A preternaturally blue sky, almost turquoise, envelopes the waterside image on the record’s sleeve, a shadowy hut flanked by bullrushes gesturing towards the central idea of ‘home’ that the opening track meditates upon. Respected New York photographer Maya Hayuk worked with Jason to shoot eleven images, one for every track. No overt links between the tunes and the photographs are offered, just as ‘Ma Fleur’’s characters are absent or distorted – this audiovisual work had to be kept as open as possible, to bring the universality and interpretative freedom Jason insists his art must have. By extension, the vocal parts on the record had to be sparse and carefully placed. Fourth track, ‘Music Box,’ for example, features the gentle intertwining of Patrick’s voice with Mercury-nominated Lou Rhodes’, their murmuring parts seeping into the composition like spirits, leaving the human world of battling wills and distracting egos behind. Returning to arresting opener ‘To Build A Home,’ Jason stresses the importance of the way in which Patrick’s words and intonation had to be ‘wrapped’ around the music in a manner that was objective enough; unobtrusively, so that the emotion was controlled and contained. The frontman’s choice of ‘wrapped’ is revealing, again harking back to that impassioned lyric, ‘Wrap yourself around the world.’ Clearly ‘wrap’ is the most active verb both within the record and Jason’s artistic imagination; this imperative to meld opposite elements together, to liquidate a fragmented life of love and loss into a fruitful whole. ‘Joy and pain’ (as Lou sings in the last tune), past and present, ‘near and far’ (Fontella’s verse), self and other, man and nature...Disparate elements are gathered, fused and dispersed by these lush and lilting soundscapes as they roll along. Scenes assemble and mutate while the characters grow, think, feel, act and decay; harmony and discord is their orchestral accompaniment. Breathe’ is the third to last track: one character’s final and stoic intake of breath as she resigns herself to death, here figured as some kind of oceanic subsuming. While the action and subject of this song is dissolution, Fontella’s vocal is rich, deep, unwavering; the most assured and dominant delivery across the entire record, flanked only by a simple bassline, a hesitant melody and occasional drums. For the spirit of ‘Ma Fleur’ is optimistic, its dynamic an upward thrust. Although Jason reckons that ‘Everyday’ was ‘closer to motion,’ he also tells me that ‘physics’ are a meaningful part of this fresh material – the bodily vibrations elicited by various instruments and voices that demand a visceral response from us. The interplay between our auditory and visual faculties are then to do with the neurophysiology of the brain, and nowhere on ‘Ma Fleur’ is this synaesthesia more alive than with Fontella’s perishing figure on ‘Ma Fleur.’ She tells of some mysterious force ‘singing into me’; ‘It comforts me / And carries me / Out to sea / And swallows me.’ At ‘swallows’ the music builds dramatically then falls away to usher in ethereal backing vocals: the benevolent god that has been presiding over the record seems to be guiding her into another life cycle. Such renewal and continuity – the visual image of waves gathering, crashing and reforming endures – is carried forward by the penultimate and final tracks. Patrick revisits the melody with which he opened the record, then Lou instructs us to ‘Dream’ over burgeoning strings and glockenspiel. The bonds between these disparate individuals allow life to remain unfolding meaningfully. Forward-looking, sincere and physical, cerebral and spiritual at once, ‘Ma Fleur’ is one of those records that is built around a belief in the power and magic of music. By working to unite the impulses of past and present, the perceptions of eye and ear and the preoccupations of self and other, Jason and his Cinematic Orchestra invite listeners to hear their own hopeful message and see external beauties afresh. ‘H(o)ld on as tightly’ to this record as you do to your own selfhood or a beloved other, and you might just relearn the wonder of what it is to ‘wrap yourself around the world.’ ‘ MA FLEUR ’ IS OUT NOW ( NINJA TUNE )

tags: | the cinematic orchestra | ma fleur | jason swinscoe

5

NEWSLETTER!

Click here and sign up to our weekly newsletter, to get the latest Notion goodness.