The Broken Orchestra
The Broken Orchestra’s innovative singles collection release (the band plans to release 7” vinyl singles in limited quantities with interesting artwork until they’ve acquired enough material for a collector’s edition box set) has sparked radio and YouTube attention alike. So I sat down yesterday, after weeks of back and forth and time exchange confusion to speak with Carl Conway-Davis, producer of this soulful, British soundtrack duo.
So, first things first, why choose the name, The Broken Orchestra?
Um there’s a couple of reasons. It’s nearly down to the way we worked and it just sort of developed and just the term broken orchestra felt right, because everything is all broken apart, and everyone who plays tends to be from all backgrounds of music, and they’ve never really met. So the set is all productive. We get all different people involved.. It just came from a discussion, really. In the way that we work with loops.
How many musicians contribute to the band?
We like to think it’s endless. We just sort of work with musicians as we find them and come across with them. We don’t really have a drummer; we don’t really have a bass player. We just come across them.
You had Natalie Gardiner appear on one of your tracks (listen here on our Soundcloud) , do you plan to continue working with her in the future?
Definitely. It would be a yes. She’s a great musician. Great singer, great voice. We basically came across her from Pat who was also in The Broken Orchestra; he had one of her albums. He found it and I think from the moment he had it, he thought that she was really suitable. We weren’t sure that she would really be interested, but she was. Definitely in the future if she was interested in working, then we’d love to do something else with her.
I’ve also heard an unfinished track with (British hip hop artist) Lady Paradox. Are you currently talking to anyone new for the next single?
Yes. We’re not really sure. I think we know what the next single will be. We’ve got about 20-25 tracks that are just about finished. We might have only written about 50 parts, but we’ve got about 25 we’re just chipping away and working at. Right now we’ve got about 4 that are just about finished. We’re trying to see what comes naturally really.
Your singles have this smooth jazz feel, it’s almost picturesque, what got you into that style of music? What inspired you?
I think what happened right from the start was it was me and Pat B., who was involved in the recording, (called element studios) just started working like it was a little bit of an experiment, and that just started to develop into songs. We were mostly interested in soundtracks and commercials, but we both have very different backgrounds. There are also elements of a crossover. Then it started developing into tracks. We didn’t really have time to an album, so we didn’t have to put a cap on it. We started creating singles. If an album was to fall out of it that’s OK, but at the moment it’s just about releasing singles.
What, would you say, are your greatest influences?
It’s hard to say for me personally, I think it just comes back to soundtracks and film. I just think that with them I’ve always found an interest with them the way the piece has been put together. The body of work and yes, it’s tough to put influences into it. There are just so many. I know that everyone always says, yes I like all music, but I think that I’ve been really free spirited when it comes to music. You will see some bits of hip hop, but that’s not it.
I know that you plan to continue releasing singles, but are you thinking about the release of a full-length album?
I’m a little unsure. I wouldn’t like to say no, because that’s a bit negative. We thought we could just keep feeding singles into the world and see what kind of response we got, but we will probably do about an albums worth of material. It’s become a lot more serious as the months have come on. So we probably will come back and look at doing an album, but it’s a little bit hard to say at the moment.
Do you plan to hit the road in the future, with a full band?
People keep asking, and we have interest in terms of doing gigs and going on the road, but at the moment we’re just really focused on getting this body of work out there and seeing what the response is like. We’d have to take it seriously. It would be a massive project for us. It’s something for the future, but it’s something at the moment that we’re not really thinking about, but I fully believe that in the lifetime it would be fantastic.
Ok, last question. If you could tell the world one thing about yourself that’s otherwise unknown (yes, even to the internet), what would it be?
Wow. —Thinks for a few seconds— I wasn’t expecting that to come up. I’m really struggling. The only sort of thing I can think of saying before the phone is that we are a production duo. I don’t think we’ve said anywhere that there are just two of us doing all of this. Everywhere else we’ve said that we’re a group and collection of musicians, but it’s really hard for me to think of something off of my head. There’s sort of the element of a band, because we use live samples for all of our material, but it’s really me and Pat that is The Broken Orchestra. Everything else is really dead and not that interesting.
Anything you want to throw out there to our readers?
I’m just eager for people to hear and give feedback see what people think. Thanks for taking the time to be interested to read in the first place.
