Hidden Orchestra – Night Walks

Following in the footsteps of hip-hop inflected brethren The Cinematic Orchestra, the similarly named, similarly styled Hidden Orchestra have set an Olympian bar for their debut LP by encouraging immediate comparisons to their long established and revered peers. Upon listening to Night Walks, it becomes instantly apparent as to why Joe Acheson and his Edinburgh based outfit have so fearlessly emulated their fellow electro-jazz purveyors – crafting an album every bit as assured as those which influenced it.

Twisting a fundamentally classic jazz blueprint, the quartet have created their own kind of cinematic jazz-noir, with the addition of brooding, string-rich atmospheric sweeps, perfectly sliced samples, and a sense of drama tempered by carefully nuanced percussion. From the patter of rooftop rain which opens Antiphon, to the epic machinations of closer, Undergrowth, Night Walks proves to be a highly emotive, celluloid-inspired journey through one of the greatest films never made. [Paul Neeson]