Exciting times, these! So what if the Messiah didn't turn up on the Eve of the New Millennium? What do we need some sandled beardy-weirdy for, anyway? Less than two full months into 2000, we got Primal Scream's Molotov incendiary device, Exterminator, which resurrected the emaciated, once-revolutionary specters of the Stooges and the MC5, and stomped dusted-up beats all over them. Brill!
The rollover of the century also saw avant-jazz taking on electronica and offering us the hope that smooth jazz wasn't the end of the road for that great tradition. Compare Autechre's LP5 with Elliot Sharpe's Errata and you'll be gobsmacked by the similarities and the friendly rivalries. Shit, what if Jelly Roll Morton and King Oliver had had PowerBooks and CuBase rather than rusty trombones and bordello pianos? What freaky shit we'd be listening to now! What if John Coltrane...? Or Ornette Coleman...?
The Cinematic Orchestra (aka J. Swinscoe) is coming from the other angle. He's a veteran electronica producer taking on jazz. And unlike Sharp's ripping up of conventions, Swinscoe's hung up on admiration. Motion is nothing less than a beat-driven tribute to Miles Davis' collaborations with third stream arranger/composer Gil Evans. Those 50's records (Sketches of Spain, Quiet Nights, Miles Ahead, for example) threw away the hard-bop rulebook and attempted to find a third path between the irreverence of jazz and the academics of the classical tradition. Davis had already expressed that interest when his nonet recorded The Birth of the Cool, but the idea was fully realized on his recordings with Gil Evans.
Swinscoe obviously adores the glowing discords and the curious harmonies of "Saeta" (from Sketches of Spain) and he's built Motion around them. Rather than using a sampler to do all the work, he's pulled together a small band and let his drum machine contribute the beats.
The opening track, "Durian," incorporates a sample of Nina Simone's heart-wrenching rendition of "Strange Fruit" and builds the close brass harmonies to a forceful climax. "Diabolus" takes a different approach to the same end and closes with an almost ambient coda. However, Motion is ironically rigid. The hip-hop beats aren't sufficient to overcome Swinscoe's reverence for the tradition he cops from. Too often the flow is ponderous and self-conscious.
If Swinscoe had allowed his musicians the freedom of a true blowin' session, Motion could have been a signal moment in the much-needed dialog between the electronic and jazz avant-gardes. Instead, the album simply restates the obvious, however beautifully. The revolution will not be held in a trendy coffee bar and Jesus won't return until he's sure that there's some kick-ass music down here to soundtrack his second coming and the destruction of all those whining bastards who've been bothering his poor, defenseless father for centuries.
