After a recent period spent focusing on sound art installations, collaborations, and video game scoring, Joe Acheson’s Hidden Orchestra project returns with a new album titled To Dream Is To Forget set for release on September 11th. Today first single Little Buddy Move is revealed.

The producer conjures intricate yet expansive worlds of sound, often in collaboration with a select core of talented musicians, combined with Acheson’s bespoke samples, field recordings, and carefully honed composition and arrangement sensibilities. Detail and craftsmanship are at the core of everything he does, even musically directing a diverse array of instrumentalists to capture unique samples of both improvised and scored nature. This ingenious approach really sets his work apart from the crowd and allows Acheson’s artistic vision to truly come to life exactly as intended.

Now releasing via his newly formed Lone Figures imprint, the musical direction for the record involved a concerted effort to condense musical themes and ideas into more immediate arrangements, with less utilisation of field recordings than previously released material.

The first track reveal from the new collection – Little Buddy Move is an exciting taste of things to come.

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The single has curious origins in a piece of music written to accompany a 30-foot tall giant puppet as it performed outdoor shows around Scotland. Elements such as the basses and chords from the original track were lifted and coupled with HAPI drum, synth work, and beats constructed mostly from sound effects.

Taking its title from the clicking sound at the very start, a sound effect recorded in Berlin by sound designer Ali Tocher, of some small mechanical figurine moving (also referencing an inversion of the name of the giant puppet project, Big Man Walking). Tocher’s unusually sourced sounds are used liberally throughout the track, including an oven door banging (as a snare drum) and a kitchen blender's motor recorded with a sensor that picks up electrical activity.

With the idea of ‘reimagining’ playing a key role in the creation of the project, this track leans into the overarching concept and nature of dreams reworking everyday experience into new subconscious stories…

Since its inception, producer and composer Joe Acheson has carefully developed Hidden Orchestra from a simple initial project concept of ‘an imagined orchestra’ into something that has flourished into a widespan musical universe of its own, that is truly unlike anything else.

After multiple albums with respected independent label Tru Thoughts, continued support from the likes of The Guardian, BBC6Music, FIP, JazzFM, several awards for innovative soundtrack work intertwined with AI and consistent global touring of an energetic and intriguing live show featuring two duelling drummers, their reach and influence has swollen to make them one of the highest regarded names in independent music today and has even led to collaborations beyond the world of music, with The British Library, Kew Gardens and National Trust all enlisting Acheson for unique installation projects. Yet regardless of the current brief in front of him, the initial mission statement to ‘create electronic music with acoustic means’ remains.

Acheson achieves this task with aplomb, conjuring intricate yet expansive worlds of sound, built in collaboration with a select core of talented musicians, combined with Acheson’s bespoke samples, field recordings, and carefully honed composition and arrangement sensibilities. Detail and craftsmanship are at the core of everything he does, even musically directing a diverse array of instrumentalists to capture unique samples of both improvised and scored nature. This ingenious approach really sets his work apart from the crowd and allows Acheson’s artistic vision to come to life exactly as intended.

While new album To Dream Is To Forget certainly maintains this mission statement, it does also bring about a sea change for the project on a few fronts. Released via Acheson’s own newly formed Lone Figures imprint, the musical direction for the record involved a concerted effort to condense musical themes and ideas into more immediate arrangements, with less utilisation of field recordings than previously released material.

Predominantly sticking to this ethos has indeed meant an average track length reduction throughout, however there is still the same high level of musicality and no shortage of ideas within this rich collection of 10 original tracks.

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