[ Ninja Tune / CD ]
Release Date: Monday 2 June 2008
This item is currently out of stock. It may take 6 or more weeks to obtain from when you place your order as this is a specialist product.
The Royal Albert Hall is the kind of venue where history is made. The Beatles and the Rollings Stones played a double bill here, legendary performances have been given from Pink Floyd to Frank Sinatra, Led Zep to Bob Dylan. And that's before you come to lectures from the likes of Stephen Hawking and the Dalai Lama. Or Muhammed Ali in the ring. Now think of a band who live to perform live. Beyond Jason Swinscoe's scintillating recordings the Cinematic Orchestra's ability to reinvent their material in the live arena has always made them stand out from their peers.
Last spring saw the release of latest album 'Ma Fleur' and 2007 saw the band's most intense touring schedule to date. More and more requests for live recordings and more and more sell out shows. So when it came to the end of the year and a return to the city from where the band was first realised, the question was "Where? Where can you do the kind of show which will do celebrate a history and at the same time create something new?" The band had always wanted a chance to develop into the Orchestra of their name, but they needed the kind of venue with the flexibility, the acoustics and the sheer scale to make it work. In the end there was only one place…
On November 2nd 2007, Jason Swinscoe brought an enhanced line-up of the Cinematic Orchestra, incorporating the 24 piece Heritage Orchestra to this amazing venue and played a show to a sold-out crowd of more than 4000 people. With over 40 musicians onstage at times, Swinscoe and his colleagues used the show as a unique opportunity to open out his chamber pieces into intense, beautiful and exquisitely realised epics which left the huge audience baying for more.
Featuring vocal contributions from Heidi Vogel, Lou Rhodes (formerly of Lamb) and Grey Reverend, plus the return of original member PC on turntables, an intense, beautiful night is captured here in all it's glory. History as it's lived, human emotion, love and rapture. You can feel it in the hairs on the back of your neck…