During lectures at Nomadic Marketing last week at the UCT Graduate School of Business, one band that almost all the lecturers referred to was Radiohead. This isn't because they specifically liked the band (although Colin Daniels did confess to being a fan) but more specifically because of the way that the band released their latest album online.

Here's the short version of what the band did

On 1 October 2007, Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood announced in a brief post on Dead Air Space (the band's blog) "Well, the new album is finished, and it's coming out in 10 days . . . We've called it In Rainbows". Bypassing a traditional physical release in stores, Radiohead released the album as a download available for order from inrainbows.com on 10 October 2007. In a Wired interview, Yorke explained that "every record for the last four—including my solo record—has been leaked. So the idea was like, we'll leak it, then. Radiohead'

The download, packaged as a ZIP file, included the ten album tracks encoded in 160 kbps DRM-free MP3 format. Upon purchase, the buyer was prompted to type in their desired price. The staggered online release of the album began at about 5:30 GMT on 10 October, but on 10 December 2007, the official digital download was no longer made available. A special made-to-order "discbox", available for pre-order through inrainbows.com, was released on 3 December 2007.

(source - www.wikipedia.com)

One of the questions that was raised in the lecture was whether this business model was a viable one for bands, or whether it only worked for Radiohead because they were Radiohead. On the other hand, to quote Colin - "if the album was crap, this wouldn't have worked." Madonna soon followed suit by making digital downloads of her album available on line to similar success, and in his lecture on New Media Law Paul Jacobson also pointed me to the Nine Inch Nails free download case study which was also a success for the band.

Now it seems that we have the first South African take on this give-your-work-away-for-free model. Jet Black and the Multi Colours have decided to distribute their new seemingly untitles EP for free on the net with their overtone record label. When I first saw the post up on www.muti.co.za, I dismissed it without realising what it actually was - a record label collaborating with a local band to make their music freely available online. This goes some way to validate something that Rafiq Philips mentioned on the WebAddiCT blog a while back: "We’re seeing the shift from the commoditisation of music to the commoditisation of attention in the music industry (...)"

I for one think that he's right and will be keeping my eyes on JetBlack to see a) whether their attempt at the new community focussed business model yields positive results and b)whether they will follow Radiohead's lead a step further and make the album available for purchase as a CD if the download campaign is a success. If this model does yield positive results, I think that we'll see many more local bands and artists following suit, especially in Cape Town where there's a wealth of musical talent with no real form of monetizing their gift (anti Joburg flame suit on,lol)

If anyone from the band or from overtone is reading this, drop me a comment and let me know how things are going.

Lester
P.S. - I'm downloading the EP now and will post a review up here in the next day or two.

When i first got my mits on a Cinematic Orchestra album, I was blown away. I hadn't heard anything like it, ever, and for a long time after i never did again. Now there's Nostalgia 77...by no means a new band (just new to me) Nostalgia meanders down the sample jazz sampled orchestra inspired groove that the Cinematics do so well. With releases picked up by Gilles Peterson and the backing of the BBC, you can bet that this is a class act.

Jason Swinscoe and the rest of the Cinematic mob have release three new singles which are currently available for listening on the band's page at www.ilike.com

http://www.ilike.com/artist/The+Cinematic+Orchestra

All three of the new tracks have a more polished sound than the band's earlier material and also contains much more of a vocal presence than previous material. Of the three, "Breathe" retains the most of the classic Cinematic Sound which we've come to know and love.

Fans on ilike have applauded the band's decision to make the full MP3 available for listening on the popular music fan site (as oppose to 30second sound clips which many artists list).

The Band's highly acclaimed previous album "Ma Fleur" is still available as a digital download for $0.99. Buy The Cinematic Orchestra - Ma Fleur for only $0.99

Just don’t confuse the genre with smooth jazz.

By Steven Sawada

When the nu-jazz craze faded in the early naughts, only a handful of bands popular during that era managed to hang on to success. Many of the groups that capitalized on the jazz/electronica hybrid that dominated the British music scene in the late '90s, and subsequently pervaded virtually every automobile commercial here in the U.S., sank back into obscurity. But for Jason Swinscoe, the architect behind the U.K.'s Cinematic Orchestra, nu-jazz's vapid jazz pastiche was always just a passing fad, a momentary event that happened to intersect with his broader vision for the marriage between jazz, electronic music, and sonic narrative.

"What happened over this time was a cycling of music styles," Swinscoe says. "Nu-jazz or whatever we used to be associated with has passed, and some of the artists have faded."

Around 1997, after getting his feet wet as a DJ on London pirate radio, Swinscoe began laying the framework for the Cinematic sound. With just a computer and a sampler, he concocted basic song ideas that he planned to augment with live players. His acumen behind the production table, from recording live musicians to dissecting and reassembling their parts, has come to define the Cinematic Orchestra sound.

In '99, after taking up employment with then-London-based independent record label Ninja Tune as an export-sales rep, Swinscoe culled together the group's core players—bassist Phil France and saxophonist Tom Chant. The resulting album, Motion, was completed later that year and released by Ninja Tune with just a bit of trepidation, Swinscoe explains.

"I believe that Motion was never traditionally a Ninja record," Swinscoe states. "It was received very well, to Ninja's surprise, and subsequently attracted a whole new audience to the label. I feel that it helped both of us back then and through to the other releases."

An amalgamation of jazz samples, looped grooves from Swinscoe's live players, and a decisive film-noir feel truly set Motion apart from the other Ninja Tune releases of the time, which were better known for their cut-n-paste breaks, kooky electronics, and bold sampling. However, while Motion was highly lauded by critics (voted album of the year on Giles Peterson's Radio 1 program), Swinscoe says it was raw, and barely graced the zenith of his musical ambitions.

"I think Motion was a great sketchbook of ideas. It was never created to be released as an LP at any point," he says. "For me, it was the beginning, and therefore setting out a somewhat simple palette and trying to execute some visual ideas sonically."

From the film-noir feel of Motion to the smoky-jazz-cafe atmosphere of the group's second album, Everyday, to their soundtrack to Dziga Vertov's 1929 silent film, Man With the Movie Camera, this sonic re-creation of visual ideas has always been the hallmark behind the Cinematic Orchestra concept, evolving and maturing with each new release. But perhaps this vision only reached fruition with their latest album, Ma Fleur.

Through 10 seamless tracks, the album follows a romantic narrative that was originally scripted by Swinscoe's friend, Gavin McGraw, a Parisian art director. Disillusioned with the progress of the album, Swinscoe handed a rough copy of the record to McGraw, who then returned several weeks later with a script for a film. The two refined it a bit, and the script eventually became the story line and lyrical framework for Ma Fleur.

Polished and lacking the gruff edges found throughout Motion, Ma Fleur's impact comes in the form of instrumental nuances (acoustic guitar, piano, bells) and smartly selected vocal accompaniment. Swinscoe again calls upon the elegant yet dour vocals of Fontella Bass (originally featured on Everyday), but this time bookends her songs with the lulling serenade of Lamb's Lou Rhodes and the Antony-esque falsettos of Patrick Watson, a Montreal pop wunderkind relatively unknown in the States.

Seemingly less beat-centric—lacking the fluttering, looped rhythms featured on tracks like Motion's "Channel 1 Suite" or Everyday's "Man With the Movie Camera"—Ma Fleur feels more organic and personable. With all the worn elements of nu-jazz far removed (i.e., the repetition and the canned hooks) and all the exciting aspects accentuated (i.e., the jazz), this fully conceptualized version of the Cinematic Orchestra sound should find the group near its pinnacle.

"There is a jazz element, which is nice to explore live," Swinscoe says. "It is also a show which has a fair amount of improvising and takes energy from the audience. It is very much a shared experience, and one that we thoroughly enjoy."

Extract from Seattle Weekly