Hidden Orchestra is an imagined orchestra compiled in multi-instrumentalist/composer/producer Joe Acheson’s studio using many separate recordings of guest musicians from a wide variety of backgrounds, combined with field recordings, bass, and intricate layers of drums. Alongside the solo studio albums, the live band has been an integral part of the project from the start.

The music is a melting-pot of Joe’s extremely varied musical experiences and infuences from an array of genres from across time and around the world, and has been described as electronic music made with acoustic instruments and natural sounds. Music built on contrasts, at once anxious and calming, dark and light, fast and slow – full of abstract emotion which is open to the listener’s interpretation.

2022 sees the return of AV shows from the Hidden Orchestra live band, following a pandemic during which Joe released the award-winning Creaks OST for cult Czech games studio Amanita Design, an album with Cerys Matthews and ten of the UK’s foremost poets on Decca Records, and
a series of multi-speaker outdoor woodland sound/music installations in Kew Gardens’ botanical forest at Wakehurst.

The live band features Joe on bass and electronics, drummer Jamie Graham, and a roster of virtuoso live guests from the album recordings, including Jack McNeill (clarinets), Becky Knight (cello) and Poppy Ackroyd (piano). Immersive visuals are created live on stage by Tom Newell of Limbic Cinema.