In Motion #1
The
Cinematic Orchestra
Ninja Tune Records.
Too transparently
collaborative to be a proper Cinematic Orchestra record but too ambitious to be
merely a stopgap release, In Motion #1 was released this past spring to
listeners in a cloud of soft focus. At least that’s my way of explaining the
indifference it was met with from fans and critics alike…
Yes it looks like a
pretty enormous undertaking on paper – 80 minutes of scores (one over
twenty-minutes in length, the others no less than eight) and without visual
accompaniment – but let’s not forget the orchestrators assigned to such a task.
Grey Reverend turns in “Regen”, an exceptional landscape of guitar and ambience
gradually unfolding into an orchestral dawn. The tragically late pianist Austin
Peralta offers the woozy but brilliant “Lapis” while Dorian Concept and Tom
Chant lend two of the disc’s more meditative fusions, “Dream Work” and “Outer
Space”; post-classical codas fed with avant-jazz tensions.
Between these
contributions lies Jason Swinscoe’s efforts; “Necrology” maintains The Cinematic
Orchestra’s trademark sound while the heroic “Manhatta” and life-affirming
suite “Entr’acte” provide the disc’s more romantic moments. Perhaps these cuts
lack the experimental edge longtime fans were hoping for; maybe the boundless
nature of these maneuvers triggered a ‘schmaltz alarm’ people never expected
from Ninja Tune. But In Motion #1 leaves nothing to heavy-handed emotion; even
the over-arching moments of grandeur swirl with undercurrents of The Cinematic
Orchestra’s eclectic past.
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