Man With A Movie Camera

20th anniversary edition, limited ashen and pewter grey 140g vinyl. Housed in a rigid tip-on foiled, embossed and debossed gatefold sleeve with new liner notes and updated artwork. Black paper inners and unseen session photography presented on a 12” double sided art card insert. As part of the film festival celebrations of Porto being the European City of Culture in 2001, Jason Swinscoe of The Cinematic Orchestra was commissioned to score a soundtrack to a silent movie as a one-off performance. The film was Dziga Vertov’s ‘Man With A Movie Camera,’ a 1929 early documentary cinema film from the Soviet Union, and hailed by many including The British Film Institute to be one of the greatest films of all time, nearly 100 years on from its creation. The performance took place in the historic Coliseu Porto, and ended with a standing ovation of 3,500 people
The Cinematic Orchestra have since toured the show internationally over the years, including performances at The Barbican in London, NYC’s Winter Garden at WTC, and Sydney Opera House. The band was in the process of writing “Every Day” when the film commission occurred, which had a formative influence on “Man With A Movie Camera”. Certain tracks that made it onto “Every Day” in other forms were written specifically for the score or were already in development, which allowed Swinscoe and the band to remold motifs to the film’s unfolding narrative. The title ‘Every Day’ was based on the narrative in the film, which portrays a day in the life of an idealised Soviet society, beginning with people waking up, moving through various workplace environments, and into leisure time & activities
“Man With A Movie Camera” was eventually recorded and released in 2003. it was met with much acclaim. The Guardian gave it 4/5 and said “You can perform an autopsy on the jazz instruments, DJ Shadow-like grooves and repeating chord sequences, yet come away scratching your head as to how, in such simple combinations, they make such heartfelt music.” The Independent on Sunday continued, “It stands alone, proud and complete.” And dance magazines also showered it with praise such as DJ Magazine, “The genius, a word not to be used lightly, of The Cinematic Orchestra seemingly knows no bounds.”