Listening To...

The Cinematic Orchestra’s latest album, Ma Fleur (Ben’s recommendation).

It’s very different to the kind of music I listen to most often. Far fewer words. More piano, less guitar. Electronica. Ambient.

Music that evokes images through music, rather than telling a story through lyrics. That allows the listener to be some kind of co-creator; not just appreciate, or not, the work itself as a completed thing.

I’ve been letting it roll around in my head. Playing it in album order – not on shuffle, mixed up with other things. Giving it time.

I’m enjoying it.

Though I haven’t listened to their earlier albums yet, I like the idea of musicians writing a new score for a pre-existing film.

It seems to me to be a bit like the communal interpretation of the Bible. There’s this pre-existing work, but it comes to us with the invitation to create a new soundtrack; to allow the work to live and speak to a new generation. Not any soundtrack will do: many conceivable soundtracks would be totally out of sync with the images, unsympathetic, jarring. But, on the other hand, more than one sympathetic soundtrack could be imagined. And, indeed, a skilful soundtrack will leave room for further sympathetic interpretation. Because a window needs a frame, but is more about the glass; needs a carpenter, and a glazier, but exists to be looked through.


The Cinematic Orchestra , Ma Fleur