The Cinematic Orchestra: Interview

The Cinematic Orchestra: Interview

22 October, 2009
by: Miguel Cullen

Gilles Peterson once wrote: "The Cinematics feel straight up correct and natural - Mr Organic no need to panic. This is about Manc jazzers and Roots Manuva all beanied up, tumbling out of the back of a smoky transit van and onto the stage in mid-winter Birmingham and leaving the crowd open-mouthed."

The beanies have gone, the hot boxed van has gone - thankfully Gilles has gone back to DJing - and The Cinematic Orchestra of 2009 is an altogether more refined flavour. These days going to a Cinematic gig is a full-on cultural experience: next month's show at The Roundhouse sees the band in full orchestra mode, accompanying screenings of Dadaist surrealism to a sit-down audience. The group's founder Jason Swinscoe spoke to me from Brooklyn, New York to discuss the band's work and its latest projects.

Tell us about your upcoming show at The Roundhouse on November 6.

We are performing our score of The Man With the Movie Camera, and accompanying a couple of short films. Erik Satie did the original score for one of them, Entr'acte. His is an incredibly accomplished piece. The film is Dada-influenced surrealism, as well as a touch of documentary. It's a big challenge to do something that's different from Satie's score - he captures it very well; it sounds very dated now, but he captured its abstraction, beauty and ridiculousness.

What was it like working on a canvass as bare as a nature documentary with your latest project, the soundtrack of Disney's Crimson Wing?

It was quite difficult. I think it was to a degree successful and in other ways it was unsuccessful. It's not a deep story and to try and create continuity with it was quite hard. It took nine months solid to do it. With films you have to adapt to the director - if you don't agree, you fall out. It was very tough in places - at certain times I would say to myself - 'I'm not doing any more film after this.' I've bounced back into the idea more now. For the show at Union Chapel (a live screening of the film, with accompaniment, this autumn) we cut the film a bit so it was more Cinematic and less (adds witheringly) Disney. Disney gave me this 60 page contract which stipulates that they own all the music. I had to bend over and just get on with it.

Back when you first came to London in 1994 you played for pirate radio show Heart FM. What style would you play?

I was playing a lot of deep garage and house, as well as some very slow half-time hip hop. I had a slot every Monday night from 6 to 7:30 pm - it was in someone's bedroom in a big tower block in Wandsworth, with a special code to get in. They had to keep it secret because every weekend they'd have their aerial taken by the authorities.

With a name like Cinematic Orchestra, was it ever your aim to do anything but score films?

The name is meant to describe the area of the music, to give people a sense of music's narrative. As well as film, house was also quite influential, in the way that you can build on repetition to create tension and release - using certain clusters of notes, like the Hitchcock composer Bernard Herrmann - to create that tension.

I think writing music to film and music of its own accord are whole different worlds - different pallettes that I like to keep separate, although they are the same medium which is quite a bizarre thing.

Are you happy with Cinematic's popularity with advertisers and TV programmes, or do you feel it cheapens the music?

We had an offer for 'To Build a Home' from a pharmaceutical company in the US; they had been involved in manufacturing Agent Orange which was used in the Vietnam War. I just couldn't get involved in that. I'm quite diligent about where the music is placed.

I saw The Herbaliser live recently, with a scratch DJ accompanying a pair on the saxophone, and it seemed rather dated. Do you feel the need to abandon electronica trappings and go all-live?

I didn't know they were still going! Definitely. Our Ma Fleur album was a big departure - it was about me trying to disregard the beat being a part of contemporary music. If you think that over the last few decades, rhythm has defined music - from funk, disco, house and hip hop through to drum and bass and the early amen break. The rhythm has come before harmony. With Ma Fleur I wanted to strip the music right back; at the time I was listening to Nina Simone and Billie Holliday - for me it was a need to concentrate on song, to focus on it as a concept.

Photo credit: Steve Double

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Miguel Cullen