Azuli’s guest-curated ‘Another Late Night’ chillout mix series shows no sign of slowing, and this latest 23rd volume sees The Cinematic Orchestra’s J. Swinscoe selected for compilation duties, on the heels of his soundtrack work for Disney’s nature film ‘The Crimson Wing: Mystery Of The Flamingos’ last year. Those familiar with previous instalments in the ‘Late Night Tales’ series mixed by the likes of Zero 7, Groove Armada and Four Tet will no doubt already have a sense of the predominant flavour here, and in this case Swinscoe certainly doesn’t buck the series’ established template, offering up a 19 track selection that distinctly favours warm, soul-infused and instrumental-led vibes. It’s also a tracklisting that while managing to avoid the usual well-worn hackneyed tracks, at the same time doesn’t really offer up much in the way of real obscurities, with pretty much all of the artists gathered here being fairly high-profile. Flying Lotus’ suitably cinematic-sounding collision of twinkling harps and moody bowed strings on ‘LA-EP3 Aunties Lock Remix’ opens things on a contemporary tip, but from there on things pretty much wander down into classic UK-grown folk and jazz / soul for the first third of this mix, with the slow acoustic guitar strokes of Nick Drake’s ‘Three Hours’ seguing smoothly into Terry Callier’s ‘You’re Gonna Miss Your Candyman.’
From there, there’s a brief slide into dusty soul-hewn drum breaks with DJ Food’s blink and you’ll miss it ‘Living Beats’ and Shuggie Otis’ ‘Aht Uh Mi Hed’, before Thom Yorke’s ‘Black Swan’ and Bjork’s ‘Joga’ see the colder electronic elements moving to the foreground, only for Sebastian Tellier’s epic ‘La Ritournelle’ and Burial’s ‘Dog Shelter’ to drag proceedings straight back into more swooning, orchestral atmospheres. After a visit from Burt Bacharach in the form of ‘South American Getaway’, The Cinematic Orchestra’s own cover of Fontella Bass’s ‘(Talking About) Freedom’ offers up the one exclusive track here, and while it doesn’t capture them quite at their best, it still easily offers up one of the stronger moments here, veering back into the smoky vibes of ‘Every Day’, rather than the tepid soul in evidence on the more recent, disappointing ‘Ma Fleur’ album. While it’s certainly a solid track selection, there’s little in the way of real surprises here; meaning that I was actually delighted when Will Self’s typically bizarre ending spoken word story closed things on a disturbing / gory note…simply because it finally offered up something unexpected and risky. You probably already know if you want this or not before reading this review.
Chris Downton
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