About
The Broken Orchestra are a five-piece trip-hop act formed in Hull, UK in 2010 by production duo Pat Dooner and Carl Conway-Davis. Influenced by Hip-Hop, Jazz and Soul, the duo collaborated with various musicians, chopping and looping their performances to create tracks consisting of vocals, drums, guitar, bass, Rhodes piano and various samples and textures.
Their debut album ‘Shibui’ was initially released in Japan via ‘P Vine Records’, subsequently a worldwide release followed via Canadian label, ‘Phonosaurus Records’. ‘Shibui’ and later releases received airplay worldwide with regular airplay in the UK via BBC 6Music and BBC Radio 1. The first single ‘Over and Over’ was also featured on a Café Del Mar compilation. To add to the band’s uniqueness, their success was achieved without any live performances.
In 2017, the duo recruited guitarist Tom Kay and vocalist Emily Render to take The Broken Orchestra on the road. The band played a sold out debut show in their hometown of Hull in August 2017 followed by various other performances around the UK.
The Broken Orchestra released, the ‘Blinded EP’ on their own label ‘A Bridge Too Far Recordings’ in March 2018, The release was supported by a UK summer tour which saw them perform at Band On The Wall in Manchester, Hoochie Coochie in Newcastle, Hi-Fi Club in Leeds and the BBC Introducing stage at Humber Street Sesh of which a crowd of over 30,000 attended. The tour was followed by a string of support shows with Natty and four-time Grammy Award winner Larry Carlton. The first single ‘Mutual’ from The Broken Orchestra’s upcoming second full length was released on 26th October 2018 and charted in the Top 200 on iTunes Japan. The track was also featured in the score, produced and written by Pat Dooner and Carl Conway-Davis for Vicky Foster's BBC Radio 4 Drama ‘Bathwater’.
In January 2019 the band added drummer Rich Lovelock to the live lineup and with Rich have just released their second full length Pathways. Added to this, duo, Pat Dooner and Carl Conway-Davis have just finished another project with poet Vicky Foster called 'Fair Winds and Following Seas', a soundtrack, audio walk, of music and poetry set against the backdrop of the river Hull.