The Cinematic Orchestra – Motion

Oh man, clever stuff this. But not dickhead clever.
I’ve had this for a long time and I remember when it came out it was a bit different.
Nice use of inventive sampling of live players with vinyl samples, sparse arrangements and cool looping leading to some truly magical tunes like ‘…and relax’ with its female vocal amd piano coda that sounds simultaneously like a rainy Monday January morning and a lost jazz soundtrack from 1971. Deeeeeep….
This keys in to that Alice Coltrane and Ahmad Jamal type Strata East deep spiritual Jazz shizzle of the 70s and recreates that dark ebony vibe.
Amazing record, the pressing is fookin top class.
I’m also not a huge fan of most of their gear after this. It’s just not in the same cool vibe, maybe someone left the group or summat changed. Fuck knows!

One of my favorite records. I got this when it came out and it blew me away. I had started to collect ECM records at the time and I bought Abercrombie's Sorcery record at the same time and everything clicked. The way they used the samples and played over them is the antithesis of my tastes. It links hip-hop and jazz together in a sincere and forward thinking way. I can't gush more about this record.

Wow! No review. I can only guess people feel the music speaks for itself.
I caught Giles Peterson DJing one night in London and he played some of the tracks from this LP. I was duly blown away and managed to ask the MC he had that night what he had been playing. He just said look out for Motion in the shops soon. I bought it from Reckless as soon as I saw it and It didn't leave my turntable for so many months. It is a masterpiece of manipulation. How quite disparate pieces of music can be brought together and sound like it's a single band just blew me away. Pure genius IMHO - there are glimpses of this on Everyday but Motion for me will always remain as Swincoes' best compostion.