The Cinematic Orchestra - 'Ma Fleur' (Ninja Tune) Released 07/05/07

Debut album 'Motion' drew an immediate fan-base thanks to Gilles Peterson et al, and 'Every Day' brought the class act songs 'All That You Give' and 'Evolution' delivered by legendary singer Fontella Bass and an altogether richer, more luxurious sound. It was the live performances of 'Man With A Movie Camera' that truly played up to The Cinematic Orchestras strengths of inventiveness, energy and exploration with accompaniment to movie screenings, and on 'Ma Fleur' TCO have conceived an album with a not yet executed film in mind, vignettes of the passing life stages that finds TCO going further than before into the the emotive qualities of their work - the broody double bass and sirens of brass are still there, and so are the finest songs to date from the frail of health Fontella Bass, Lou Rhodes and the extraordinary Patrick Watson from Montreal. 'Ma Fleur' is a poignant work, at times sad and melancholic as though dealing with key losses of loved ones, an unsettling quality that allows the listener to acknowledge sometimes forgotten losses or hidden grief. 
 
Early life is begat with 'To Build A Home' striking the Orchestra with plaintive piano and the vocal strengths of Patrick Watson delivered with tenderness and a certain femininity in his emotiveness, a song that manages to drop deep into the love and loss of a parent and the childhood remembrances "...I climb the tree to see the world...". 'Familiar Ground' is just that sonically for TCO with its chilled jazz grooves featuring Fontella Bass with her languid vocals and swooning brass accompaniment, and 'Child Song' shows jazzy sophistication on a more urbane and driven track.

The slow chimes of 'Music Box' with vocal backing from Lou Rhodes and Patrick Watson furnish a still and reflective track delivered like a siren song - "...a little bit of gold/ a little bit of pearl/ wrap yourself around the world..." sure to be a hit with The Big Chill, whilst 'Prelude' takes a Craig Armstrong style excursion with Orchestral movements tugging the heart-strings. The leftfieldish 'As The Stars Fall' has the double bass pining down the walloping drums and the sonic washes from Jason Swinscoe with almost psychedelic airs soothed by caressing strings, and title track 'Ma Fleur' speaks of distance with piano prods, tooting brass, a distant double bass and a ruminative melancholy like a scene from an L.S. Lowry painting - only the chaps are out of luck, out of pocket.

Fontella Bass shows power and majesty in the excellent 'Breathe' that sounds like a personal swan-song from a woman accepting her mortality, death defying and life embracing - "Oh that song is singing/ singing into me/ over everything/ I used to be...it carries me/ out to sea/ and swallows me...", TCO with acoustic guitar and programming-simple, low-key and non-intrusive that allows Fontella to go somewhere deep inside. The sublime 'Time and Space' from Lou Rhodes closes with its encouragements to dream and visions of angels recalling her finer work with Lamb, a song that TCO take to the sky's.

Like Massive Attack drafting in lynch-pin defining-singers to make memorable albums such as 'Mezzanine', 'Ma Fleur' is bolstered by its choice of vocalists that allow TCO to go not so much to greater heights but to hitherto unexplored depths. Should a movie follow on the back of this we'd like to see each track taken up by a different director that'd do justice to this classic of an album in the making.