France Phil

As the principal collaborator alongside Jason Swinscoe in the Cinematic Orchestra, Phil France is responsible for some of the most heartrendingly beautiful music created in recent times. Co-writing, arranging and producing on the Cinematic Orchestra albums including Everyday, Man With The Movie Camera, Ma Fleur and also the triple award winning soundtrack for The Crimson Wing nature documentary, France's skills have always extended beyond his bass-lines.

Born Elland, West Yorkshire in 1971 and raised in Huddersfield where he met Jason Swinscoeand introduced him to the music of Charles Mingus he began as principle bassist in KirkleesYouth Orchestra and Huddersfield Philharmonic before studying History at Newcastle Universityand later going onto post graduate course in Jazz and Studio Music at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London. He would then join the newly formed Cinematic Orchestra in 1997 having reconnected with Swinscoe through mutual friends.

Now living in Manchester, he initially made the move back to his native Yorkshire a couple of years ago after some time in London, where he set to work teaching himself the finer detailsof programming and began work onThe Swimmer. Deeply emotive and epic in scale, it drawsit's influences from the great second wave of film composers including John Carpenter andVangelis, as well as minimalist composers such as Steve Reich and Philip Glass.

France's skill, in this album, as well as his work with The Cinematic Orchestra, is in soundtracking human emotion - it is full of heartbreak and recovery, strength, honesty and frailty, it is meditative and hopeful.