The Matinee Orchestra

--------'a wonderful album that sort of sounds like Sigur Ros meeting Mum and deciding to move to England and go acoustic. File under gorgeous.' chris coco, bbc radio 1. -------- ok so the Matinee Orchestra is sound artist Andrew Hodson's first commercially available album and has been recorded in Spain, Taiwan, Scotland and England with many diffrent people who are members of The Matinee Orchestra. No stranger to the music scene, Hodson has released two critically acclaimed albums with his ex-band Jumbo and recorded three more arts based projects of his own "map music" (beautiful pigeon 2004), "in your heart you will find your dreams" (try records 2005) and "Dance Music" (Morning star publications 2006) . Coming across like a Mid-Western American barn dance with Olivia Tremor Control playing in the grain silo, Matinee Orchestra is a rich and sparkling listening experience with all the rewarding qualities of a classic novel. This is the sort of album which reveals itself over time after repeated listens and becomes impossible to forget. With layers of beautiful instrumentation punctuated with haunting vocals this is a dense record, employing the wall-of-sound pop production we so lovingly reminisce about. "Matinee Orchestra" is described by Hodson as a laptop band. To group this album in with others in the genre would not be doing it the justice it clearly deserves. An epic journey, more in line with the soundtracks to lonely American films such as The Straight Story or The Hired Hand, Hodson has created a beautiful introspective but warming journey. Finally we are presented with a record which can sound childlike and innocent without ever becoming twee, and for that we should be thankful. The album features guest appearances from Peter and David Brewis of Field Music, members of the Kathryn Williams band, singer Caroline Thorp and Paul Smith of Maximo Park who for this project distanced himself from his mainstream agit-art-pop. I edited my profile with Thomas Myspace Editor V4.4 (www.strikefile.com/myspace) ..