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| As If To Nothing |
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label: melankolic
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| guests: evan dando,
mogwai, photek, king crimson, bono, wendy stubbs, others. |
| production: craig
armstrong, stephen hilton |
| year of release: 2002 |
| website: craigarmstrong.com
| the-raft.com |
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| This painter uses black linen.
Instead of darkening the virgin white, he's adding brightness
to a vacuumed black hole. He uses the lightless surrounding
to give a stronger impression to his light. He's adding wind
to the cold. He supersizes the moment with music. It's composed
emphasizing. While blurring. While using smears and layers as
a tool to give the exact meaning within time and structure rather
than a small number of key notes. It's accentuating. |
| There must be many ways how
to describe Craig Armstrong's music, to then be quickly stuck
in the mud that is wacky expressionism or fairy tale blues.
While the words might quickly fit, it does not make them immediately
big enough, for something that is very big. Craig's music is
monumental. And so you drag metaphors and similes and poetic
reasoning onto the paper, trying to reencounter what it means
to encounter this orchestrated music. |
| But maybe we need to approach
this through history, mentioning that Craig first attracted
our attention on Massive Attack's second album "Protection",
where he lent his magic to "Sly" and "Weather
Storm", to just mention two. And these ideas were picked
up again on Craig's first album "Space Between Us",
that included such masterpieces as "Let's Go Out Tonight"
and the Big Sur like "Laura's Theme". Since then or
to some extend while then, Craig also worked with Mel C and
the Spice Girls, Björk, Madonna, Hole he worked for the
movie "Moulin Rouge", "Romeo & Juliet"
and "Plunkett & Macleane", along with having his
songs on a bundle of soundtracks. |
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| tracklisting |
| 1. Ruthless Gravity |
| 2. Wake Up In New York |
| 3. Miracle |
| 4. Amber |
| 5. Finding |
| 6. Waltz Beauty |
| 7. Inhaler |
| 8. Hymn 2 |
| 9. Snow |
| 10. Starless II |
| 11. Stay (Faraway, So Close) |
| 12. Niente |
| 13. Sea Song |
| 14. Let It Be Love |
| 15. Choral Ending |
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| What leads us to another easy description
that's fitting for Craig's music: it's soundtrack
music. Score music. Craig Armstrong has this soundtrack
quality to his songs. And when you look at what
that means, then it also means everything that was
said before; as movie scores enhance the mood, enhance
the atmosphere and enhance the emotion. |
| What however is too limiting for
what Craig does. Especially when he invites a singer.
Like Bono for a reworking of "Stay
(Faraway, So Close)". And here the
over boarding meaning is reflected in Bono's voice
when it starts to tremble, and when at the end of
the song you wonder if this was done in one take,
and consciously left unperfected. Further there's
also "Wake Up In New
York" with Evan Dando and "Sea
Song" with Wendy Stubbs, that both
again have the touching quality to get a grown man
to cry. A quality that can also, while a little
less, be found on the many instrumental tracks,
even a harsher one, which are often also very plush
and neat ("Starless
II"), but at least in the case of
"Hymn 2"
harsh, with Photek lending his talents to this song.
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| Craig Armstrong is a miracle maker
when it comes to these slow and atmospheric string
section layers. He's a magician when it comes to
impress us with something glistening in a world
of muck. He's a master builder when it comes to
using emotion as the walls to carry his ceiling.
Craig Armstrong's music is silence in a world of
thunder. |
| review:
tadah |
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