Hidden Orchestra – Dawn Chorus

Some merely adopt a consistent theme, idea or story, while others make such consistent preoccupations an inextricable part of the music itself. The latter is true of Hidden Orchestra’s third LP, Dawn Chorus. Joe Acheson, the Edinburgh native who for all intents and purposes is Hidden Orchestra, compiled this latest set of songs by extensively logging field recordings from the UK and beyond – all of which were taken at dawn, of course – and then used them as the basis for the tracks on this album. It’s an ambitious remit and no mistake – one that yields mixed results on the record itself.

The noises in the background are omnipresent, and generally speaking, it’s the sparser numbers – the ones that let the candid recordings come to the fore –  that are the more engaging here. It’s why the hazy First Light proves such a striking opening to proceedings, with reverb and snatches of piano dipping in and out over the sound of birdsong, and also explains why the overly busy Western Isles proves such a disorienting followup, with off-kilter, shuffling beats ultimately coming over as nothing more than distracting. 

That dichotomy continues throughout the album; Still is a standout because it keeps everything sounding cohesive, from the swells of brass to the rapid fire of the percussive line, while none of the diffuse instrumental ideas on Stone ever quite mesh properly. Still, when Dawn Chorus is at its loveliest, it’s irresistible – the one-two centrepiece of Long Orchard and Alyth is poetry in motion. There are hits and misses alike from Acheson on this album, but the latter are only ever symptoms of his ambition – we should all be fascinated as to where he’ll go next.