Biography

There are no barriers in Craig Armstrong's world. Whether he's composing classical pieces, writing film scores, recording his own solo albums or collaborating with the likes of Madonna, Massive Attack and U2, it is all simply music.

"It's a very British sport to put everything in a box, but who cares about the label?" reasons the 44 year old composer, whose background includes studying at the Royal Academy, working with rock bands and winning 'Young Jazz Musician of the Year' at an early age. "It would be bizarre if all those influences weren't in my music."

His latest album, 'Piano Works', is a case in point. "I'm not sure what it is," he says, "Is it classical? Or is it an extension of the work I did with Massive Attack? I don't know, and I don't really care. All I wanted to do was make an album that sounded beautiful."

'Piano Works' presents a new aspect of Craig Armstrong's music. But it's really a logical extension of everything else he has done in his extraordinarily diverse career. After studying violin and composition at the Royal Academy, he served time in such local Glasgow bands as Hipsway, Texas and The Big Dish. From there he branched into theatre and became resident composer at the Tron Theatre in Glasgow. His other stage work includes commissions for the Royal Shakespeare Company.

His many film scores include Baz Luhrmann's 'Romeo and Juliet', for which he won an Ivor Novello award and 'Moulin Rouge', for which he won a Golden Globe. He also arranged the 'Mission Impossible' soundtrack and the 'Goldeneye' and 'Batman Forever' themes, and won a second Ivor Novello for his music for Phillip Noyce's 'The Quiet American'. Craig also scored 'The Bone Collector' and the Oscar-winning 'One Day In September'.

His classical works include, a chamber opera commissioned for the Edinburgh festival, a homage to Mahler; which was performed at the Barbican, and various other orchestral commissions for the Northern Sinfonietta, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the BT Ensemble and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

In the world of popular music he has become one of the world's most sought after composers and arrangers. His work with Massive Attack on their 'Protection' album led to him signing as a solo artist to their record label, Melankolic, for whom he recorded the solo albums 'The Space Between Us' and 'As If To Nothing'.

Following Melankolic's demise, for his third solo offering, Craig is releasing 'Piano Works' himself as a very Limited Edition release on 3rd May 2004. The album is radically different and contains gorgeous piano versions of some of his film themes, tracks he composed for Massive Attack and entirely new pieces.

Surprisingly, it was the violin, and not the piano, that was his first instrument. "But the piano is where I feel most at home," he explains. "I regard myself primarily as a composer, and the piano is where I compose. It's my tool, I play for several hours every day and I have a deep love for it."

The idea for 'Piano Works' arose out of a short solo piano sequence Craig gave in the middle of a concert in Paris. "It was the first time I had played piano in public in years, but the audience reacted really well to it," he recalls.

His original intention was an album of piano versions of his film Compositions but as he began recording - in Paris, Glasgow, Berlin and London - new music came. As a result, about 80 per cent of the compositions on Piano Works are freshly written, including 'In My Own Words', 'Diffuse', 'Fugue', 'Angelina', 'Delay' and 'Sunrise'. "Most of the new pieces are pure improvisations. In a sense that's all composition is really," he says, "selective improvisation."

'Satine's Theme' was originally heard in 'Moulin Rouge', and 'Morning Breaks' in 'Romeo and Juliet'. 'Heatmiser 2' and 'Weather Storm' are pieces he wrote with Massive Attack. As he composed them originally at the piano, what we hear on Piano Works are familiar tunes stripped back to something approaching their original form.

To several of the tracks, Craig has added subtle electronic arrangements via a revolutionary programme known as Plugo, which allowed him to electronically manipulate the sound of the piano in 'real' time. "I'd write the piano track and then whilst it was playing I would improvise with it electronically, but in 'real' time. I wanted to create an album that looked to the future. Even though some of the tracks sound very electronic, it's all really piano because this programme allows you to rule the technology, rather than the other way around." Both 'Hidden' and 'Diffuse' on the album were created in such fashion.

What gives 'Piano Works' its sense of unity is the space which Craig leaves in the music. "I wanted to do something very still," he explains. "I don't think in terms of pictures when I'm composing, but I like to create a place which people can fill with their own thoughts and emotions and pictures. My last solo album was quite challenging to the listener. This time I wanted an album you could listen to intently on an expensive hi-fi. But you could also use it in the background if you wanted. I wanted it to sound like glass, or waterÉcrystal clear."

The release of 'Piano Works' is followed by a film of the same title shot in Paris by director, David Bernard. "I originally said no because I prefer to stay anonymous," Armstrong admits. "Then I saw some of the stuff David had done with Bjork. It's very hard to film music, but he knows how to do it."

Yet, the film did provide a shock. "You don't usually look at yourself playing," he confesses. "I watched the film and thought my technique was awful. My piano teacher at the Academy would thrash me! But I'm glad I've done it, because I think I have a very personal and idiosyncratic way of playing. I've been playing the piano since I was seven and it's never let me down."

These days Craig is in such demand that he has to pick and chose his projects carefully. There are more films in the pipeline, including the next work from David McKenzie, 'Young Adam', and a new Robert Redford movie 'The Clearing'.

A best of film music album, 'Film Works', will be released later this year. "I've done so many films, some of which have never been seen," he says. "The album is an opportunity to get out some of the music people have never heard. It's the best of what I've done, It's not just the pieces everybody knows."

Then there is the new 'Chanel No.5' advert featuring Nicole Kidman and directed by Baz Luhrmann, for which Craig composed the music, due to be aired later this year.

But to Craig Armstrong it is all simply music. Without any barriers. "Sounds from all over the planet are now easily accessible," he enthuses. "So how can you not be influenced by everything you hear?"