Faze Action - “Moving Cities (Cinematic Orchestra Remix)”
Nuphonic 03
2000
Future Jazz
From critic William Ruhlmann:
The British dance music duo Faze Action consists of brothers Simon and Robin Lee. They grew up in Amersham, where Robin taught himself to play bass; he later studied music at Goldsmith College. Also interested in music, Simon began producing. Robin took a job as an English teacher in Osaka, Japan, and the two sent tapes back and forth to each other. As Faze Action, they released their debut single, "Original Disco Motion," in 1995, followed by "In The Trees" in 1996. 1997 saw the release of their first album, Plans & Designs. Their second album, Moving Cities, was their first to be released In the U.S. in 1999, by which time Robin had moved back to the U.K.
Though they’re not known nearly as much as they deserve to be, Britain’s Faze Action brothers are experts at fusing together nu-disco with classical strings and pan-African and Latin music. Just take a listen to a song like “Moving Cities” to get a good idea. It’s sort of like that Walter Murphy track from Saturday Night Fever where he paired Beethoven’s fifth symphony with disco-funk, but without all those gimmicky climbs and climaxes. “Moving Cities” represented a clean rehash of a classic disco sound, but made for a globalized, new millennium, and with a touch of moodiness.
After Moving Cities’ 1999 release, a 12-inch single for the title track emerged the following year. And on that 12-inch is a superb future jazz remix by a UK band called The Cinematic Orchestra. Truth be told, the remix sounds almost nothing like the original. If you listen to them back to back, you can pick up on a rhythmic similarity, but just barely. Had The Cinematic Orchestra’s remix not appeared on the same 12-inch as the original version, and had it been given a completely different title, they probably could’ve just gotten away with calling it one of their own songs. Hard to imagine that anyone would’ve actually linked the two tracks together.
So, whereas the original version of “Moving Cities” is a fantastic brand of pure 70s-glitz and glam, instrumental disco revival, The Cinematic Orchestra’s remix is like if you were trekking deep through a forest and all of a sudden encountered a well-seasoned jazz ensemble. There’s just such a raw, organic earthiness to this one. A thick combination of layers of short, repetitive rhythms and melodies, and with lots of percussion, all playing their small, but important role like cogs in a machine, constantly building in order to provide a sturdy foundation for a series of changing leads; first the keyboards, then the bass, and then a well-placed and unexpected addition of horn stabs. And if you listen with a good pair of headphones, those horns, man, the way they mixed them, it almost sounds like they’re coming in from outside of the headphones, like they’re in the room with you, penetrating through your cans, and not in the forest that you’re imagining the song was actually recorded in.
I’m just so captivated by this tune. A phenomenal piece of turn-of-the-millennium future jazz.
