History has been kind to J. Swinscoe. Despite a five-year drought, his downtempo jazz outfit Cinematic Orchestra has maintained a level of after-the-fact credibility that perceived contemporaries like Nightmares on Wax, Lamb, and Skalpel would probably kill for in 2007. It's true that with the benefit of hindsight, a lot of the stuff from that early noughties post trip-hop milieu doesn't sound nearly as moony or as luxuriant as it once did. For better or worse, that general blueprint (loping rhythms, swooshy atmospherics, stirring strings, trembling female vocals) never managed to transcend the stereotype of being nothing more than a sonic duvet for the gentrifying frontlines; no wonder that as scenes went, it evaporated faster than you could spell "Café Del Mar".
But thanks mostly to 2002's superb Every Day, Cinematic Orchestra escaped that era pretty much intact. Where most of their contemporaries scored easy points by merging Hallmark-style sentimentality with wiffly atmospherics, Cinematic always seemed to aim higher, recruiting gnarled instrumental veterans, drawing deep from jazz, and making records that felt more like expansive, carefully constructed suites than collections of songs.
All of which is reason enough to be a little bit offput by Swinscoe's new direction. His first full-length since Every Day, Ma Fleur abandons the light touch of his prior efforts in favor of an almost aggressively pretty approach. Where Swinscoe's early records were coy slow-burners that captivated over time, Ma Fleur leaves no room for subtlety. From the lonely, pregnant piano chords that open the record to the spiraling strings that close it, this is instructively momentous music, a conveyor belt of carefully delineated deep sighs, thoughtful sounds and big moments.
If it all sounds a little too rich, well, it can be. The good news is that some of the songs do merit their lavish surroundings. With a monochromatic piano line and guest vocals from an androgynous-sounding Patrick Watson, opener "To Build a Home" is a candlelit ballad that bears more than a passing resemblance to Antony's work. Despite its beauty (or maybe because of it), it also establishes a stultifying air that the album never really shakes itself free of. Sometimes, as with the gently fingerpicked "Music Box", the shimmering and stately "As the Stars Fall Into You" and the quietly explosive "Breathe", it's a look that serves Swinscoe well. But by the time he breaks the pindrop silence with a creeping string coda for what feels like the ninetieth instance in 35 minutes, you might find yourself wishing this particular ride had more than two gears, or at least that one of those two gears wasn't 'park'.
Sadly, there's nothing here that approaches Every Day's most spine-tingling moment-- the Roots Manuva-aided "All Things to All Men". If Ma Fleur is any indication, Swinscoe isn't particularly interested in evincing those kinds of thrills anymore, and that's a shame, because records that try to do what he's doing here are a hell of a lot easier to come by. Slow, sugary, and perhaps a little too safe, this is not quite the return that Cinematic fans will want it to be.
