Daniel Padden & the One Ensemble

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Dummy Jim

Now available is music from and inspired by the film of the same name, based on the journal I Cycled Into the Arctic Circle by James Duthie, a profoundly deaf Aberdeenshire man who toured solo on a 3000 mile trip to the far north of Europe in 1951.

More information and a shop for the DVD, CD and other stuff is available at dummyjim.com.

Other Thunders

Now available on the No-Fi label, this is an album featuring an expanded line-up of The One Ensemble, with bass clarinets and more voices added to the mix. Below is the press release from No-Fi:

Daniel Padden's The One Ensemble began as a solo project and quickly morphed into a quartet with the recruitment of Chris Hladowski and Aby Vulliamy of Nalle, and Peter Nicholson. With Padden's leadership, they developed a curious and strident brew of Eastern European folk, chamber music, a pinch of Robert Wyatt and some kind of earthy psychedelic primitivism. Padden has been fortunate in recruiting a band of such polymath virtuosity, giving room for his grand designs to be realised gloriously, both on stage and on record. As The One Ensemble Orchestra, their sound is given the blaze of full technicolour glory as they expand to a septet, exacerbating their collision of the formal and the tribal and oftentimes recalling the soundtrack and mood of The Holy Mountain. They originally expanded to a seven-piece for a commission from Bristol's Venn festival in 2007, and consequently recorded these tracks at Padden's studio. The extra members mean the Ensemble's already rich sound is given further depth and added gravity, while losing none of their dextrous transitions or delicate passages. But when they hit those vocal incantations or rhythmic cascades that fans of their sound love so much, there's undoubtedly an extra magic and drive that is a delight to behold. At times, the Ensemble come on like a mediaeval A Hawk And A Hacksaw, other times a chamber quartet ambushed by Balkan folk terrorists, but they always sound unquestionably themselves, channelling a thousand delicately unrefined, rough, raw and dreamlike voices. Like your favourite meal super-sized, The One Ensemble Orchestra is the esoteric treat you've been promising yourself.

Pause for the Jet

Daniel Padden has a solo album now out on the Dekorder label. Its called 'Pause for the Jet' and is available on CD and vinyl.

In addition, Other Thunders by The One Ensemble Orchestra is now finished and due for release in autumn 2008 on the No-Fi label. This album has been a while in coming, being based on material performed live last May 2007 by an expanded 7-piece version of The One Ensemble.

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