Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark: Hidden Orchestra's Joe Acheson

Over the past five years or so, Edinburgh composer and producer Joe Acheson’s Hidden Orchestra project has established itself as one of the most interesting cross-discipline ventures around. Through a blend of live instrumentation, electronic programming and an increasingly rich bank of samples and source material, Acheson has helmed a project which feels just as at home in a club setting as it does in more traditional spaces.

Last month saw the release of Reorchestrations, the third Hidden Orchestra album to emerge since 2010, this time via Germany’s Denovali imprint. It finds Acheson on typically imposing form, reworking tracks from artists across the spectrum of folk and classical through to more experimental material. Crucially, and as always, there’s a rich ambience to the record, which is all his own. 

On his return from a trip collecting field recordings, Acheson tells us via email that he’s been keeping busy of late. “I just got back from a trip to the most southerly point of the UK – The Lizard in Cornwall – where I'm doing a sound-based residency with the National Trust, based in Marconi's radio hut, where the first long-distance wireless transmissions were made and received.”

Marconi’s base is certainly a fitting spot for Joe to do his thing – much of his music marries lush instrumentation with fragments of sound, many of which sound like they could have been plucked straight from the airwaves. Other samples have a more natural feel and are the results of a particularly inquisitive methodology: “I often go out walking at different times of day or night with a small bag of different microphones and see what I come across. It's a bit like fishing for sound – you never know what you're going to find, and sometimes nothing bites.

“If I'm at a beach, I expect waves and seabirds, but the most interesting sound might turn out to be a rattling chain or a creaking board. Sometimes I just happen across things I like the sound of in everyday life, and record them too – a cooker timer or a faulty thermostat, the dawn chorus out of my hotel window on tour, or birds landing on a bird-table.”

Acheson’s early forays into sampling followed a much more conventional approach, with much of his time spent tracking through records to find interesting loops of melodies and rhythms to use in his work. This soon progressed into using samples sourced from improvised instrumental recordings made with musicians in his studio. “Now I listen back to field recordings waiting for the same rhythms and sounds to jump out,” he says.

The craft of making music is clearly all-important to Joe. When he last spoke to us in 2012, he explained the time he puts into collating material for his albums – the last offering, Archipelago, was around six years in the making. Yet it would seem that perhaps this process has quickened somewhat over the years. Has his approach changed much over time? “Since the last album I've spent a lot of time thinking about and experimenting with my working process,” he explains. “The tracks on this release were all partly made as experiments in different ways of putting a track together, with most of the actual 'source material' supplied in the form of beautiful pieces by other people. They were originally a by-product of my annual mixtape series, which feature many 'reorchestrations' of all kinds of different artists from all over the world.

“These are the ones which worked together most as a cohesive album release, which felt like it represented the development of the Hidden Orchestra sound. I hope I have found quicker ways of working – especially by experimenting with revolutionary music software such as Ableton, which is an extraordinary way of generating and developing ideas. I would really like to finish a full Hidden Orchestra album by the end of this year."

As well as drawing inspiration from his walks in the wild and the music he uses as source material, Acheson has always had broad tastes to call upon. Yet he wears his influences lightly and there’s a fluidity to his music which suggests no one genre has ever dominated his focus as a listener. “I've never had a very specific taste”, he confirms. “I am still buying both old and new music by all kinds of acoustic and electronic artists from around the world, and I go to see a variety of live music – recently LAU and Nils Frahm were both great. My last acquisitions were Don Li, the new Long Arm, Derek Gripper's guitar transcriptions of Malian kora music, a new Tipper EP, Nils Landgren & Esbjorn Svensson.”

He also casually slips in recently rediscovering Jungle Mania 94 – “I wanted to get the mp3s of this classic jungle compilation I bought out of curiosity on cassette at a service station when I was really young.

“I think all the music that I've ever heard continually feeds into what I do – I think this is probably true of everyone. I often find the most original things even the best people are doing are the new ways they find of combining and reinterpreting their influences and pre-existing ideas. That's why it's easy to trace the gradual evolution of music over time, the roots and progressions of different styles.”

On first listening to the new record, some may find it hard to accept that Acheson is reworking music from various other artists – he manages to maintain a strong signature of his own, and there are clear echoes of his previous releases throughout: “I think it fits well with the first two albums, in that I was using the same compositional and production techniques, but using other people's material as the source material.

“I feel it sounds like a natural development of the Hidden project – I hope it comes across that way. I guess I have also worked with music that is drawing from similar sound palettes to my original Hidden Orchestra tracks – pianos, strings, double bass, metallophones, harps, drums, natural sound effects – so it is quite natural for me to apply my own techniques and textures to these kinds of sounds."

In the accompanying press release for the album, Acheson’s approach to interpreting others’ work is described as 'sensitive and non-destructive'. Does he view it as remixing at all? The album’s title provides an obvious answer which Acheson carefully clarifies. “I see these tracks as 'reorchestrations' rather than remixes. The individual tracks are named 'remixes' for industry convention – but when I actually do what I see as remixes they are often more 'destructive', taking a piece of music apart and completely rebuilding it in a different style.

“With most of these tracks, the original piece remains largely intact – I have essentially taken  pieces of music I really like, and have expanded them with extra layers of textures, drums, harmonies and basslines, originally simply for my own enjoyment, as if I was the artist's overly-trusted producer with a ridiculously free rein on how to interpret their vision. It's a really inspiring process, and allows me to concentrate on different ways of developing material and combining it with new ideas, with the luxury of a wide selection of really interesting riffs, textures, patterns and phrases, all provided by someone else. I intend this release to be the first in a long-running series of Reorchestrations albums, consisting of similar Hidden Orchestra-style expanded arrangements of exceptional classical/folk/jazz/experimental musicians.”

Of course with a project such as this, Acheson and his counterparts really shine in a live environment, and in a way which many artists working in electronic music often fail to achieve. His upcoming appearance for Cross the Tracks in Edinburgh sees him relying on a trusted group of collaborators. “The live setup for that show will be the classic four-piece – myself on bass/electronics, Poppy Ackroyd on piano/violin, and Tim Lane and Jamie Graham on drums, with guest trumpeter Phil Cardwell from Glasgow.

“Our setup varies from show to show – we have several different AV setups for different venues and occasions, developed over a long collaboration with Bristol's Tom Lumen, as well as numerous different live guests, who are always musicians who have previously come in to record on the albums – the invisible musicians that make up the imaginary hidden orchestra."

The remainder of the year is set to be busy for Joe – his coastal sounds residency with the National Trust continues, part of a campaign to create a sound-map of the entire coastline... He’s also developing a new two-piece live show, and will embark on a European tour in November. His appearance at Summerhall this month will give an Edinburgh crowd a welcome glimpse of one of their most distinctive native sons.    

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Reorchestrations is released on 24 Jul via Denovali. Hidden Orchestra play Cross the Tracks at Summerhall, Edinburgh on 24 Jul