The album's overall structure is meticulous, featuring computer game interludes 'You win' and 'You lose' that frame a trilogy of 'music' types, with a prologue and an apex.
Critical Reception
The Danish Arts Foundation, when awarding James Black a grant in 2020, described his work as a "universe of real madness where 'everything goes'" but noted his ultimate control over the chaotic results.
Composer Biography
James Black, born in 1990 in England, studied at Oxford University and the Royal Danish Academy of Music, graduating from the soloist class in 2018.
Composition History
Composer James Black received a large working grant from the Danish Arts Foundation in March 2020, just as the world went into lockdown, providing him with the means and motive for this album.
Composer's Artistic Vision
James Black's music is underpinned by rigorous compositional structures and systems, notably his use of the Infinity Series, an integer sequence propagated by Danish composer Per Nørgård.
Compositional Technique
The music on this album is not notated and was created almost entirely using electroacoustic means, a departure for James Black.
Composer's Artistic Vision
James Black is "quite obsessed" with combining disparate elements and making them interact in unusual ways, a concept central to this album.
You might also enjoy...
Melencolic Medley
Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Dekagon
Garden in Summer
Pierre et le Loup, Op. 67 / Le Carnaval des animaux
On the Journey, Pt. 5
Max's Tracks
Requiem for a Dream / OST
Prokofiev: Péter és a farkas, gyermekeknek írt szimfonikus mese, Op. 67
Murmers in Time
Pierino e il Lupo, una fiaba musicale per bambini, Op. 67
John Harbison: Songs After Hours
Prokovief Pieder ed il luf, ina praula musicala per affons Op. 67
