HIS roots may still be in Glasgow, but Craig Armstrong’s music has always marked him out as a man of the world.
The Scottish composer, whose CV features everyone from Massive Attack to the BBC Symphony Orchestra to Madonna to Baz Luhrmann, has been absent album-wise for six years, but now does its best to make up for lost time.
Weighing in at 17 songs, and recorded as Armstrong traversed the world with various orchestras, it verges between the sweeping melodrama you might expect from somebody with Armstrong’s track record, while underpinning it with the darker electronic edge of trip-hop.
Vocals from a Glaswegian gang comprising Paul Buchanan of The Blue Nile, Jerry Burns, James Grant and Katie O’Halloran, with Suede’s Brett Anderson also turning up on Crash, prove that Armstrong never forgets his roots. But this music of class and deftness, particularly Powder, Sing and Desole, is made by a man whose ambitions, unlike his heart, never remain home for long.
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