Craig Armstrong

Scotsman Craig Armstrong is one of those criminally underappreciated film composers, despite his obvious talents and hip credentials. Maybe it's because of his idiosyncratically different approach that sets him apart from the rest. Unlike more celebrated contemporaries like James Newton Howard and Howard Shore who would sometimes have a tendency to go over the top with their symphonic-string flourishes and horn-chart bombast, Armstrong is content to brood around with his Pro Tools software, icy electronics, trip-hop beats and measured (to a fault) use of chamber strings, meticulously constructing his beautifully bleak soundscapes. Armstrong's two solo works carry over the peculiarities of his filmic work, with 'The Space Between Us' and "As If to Nothing' both comprising soundtracks to the vagaries of the postmodern world, solemn, pensive but ultimately hopeful musical microcosms that perfectly encapsulates the hopes and fears of today's global citizen. Check out the lush, sweeping 'This Love' from 1998, a sensual new-millennium torch song that features the distinctive unearthly soprano of Cocteau Twins' Elzabeth Fraser.