Craig Armstrong Space Between Us CD

Craig Armstrong scored the sweeping string arrangements for Massive Attack's PROTECTION. It is therefore fitting that his debut album should see release through the Bristol band's Melankolic imprint. Nor should it surprise anyone that THE SPACE BETWEEN US is a veritable waterworks of strings, harps, and longing. To the classically trained Armstrong's credit, the album's resplendent romanticism never becomes soggy or overbearing. Even as the strings welter and arc in dizzy, heaven-bound spirals, a shadowing of spare downtempo electronics maintains an attractively lugubrious atmosphere.

THE SPACE BETWEEN US is mostly instrumental, though former Cocteau Twin Elizabeth Fraser graces "This Love" with a heart-stopping vocal turn. She blazes brilliantly against Armstrong's flowering backdrop, as does Paul Buchanan's Brian Ferry-like delivery of "Let's Go Out Tonight." Armstrong's gift for simple and sensitive melodicism surpasses the crass, tear-jerking histrionics in which many of his peers wallow. "Laura's Theme," "Glasgow," and Armstrong's original setting for ROMEO AND JULIET's oft-scored balcony scene prove him the equal of icons like Nino Rota and Frances Lai and suggest that cinema is Armstrong's true calling. Sure enough, Armstrong hit the silver screen in 1999 with his score for Jake Scott's PLUNKETT & MACLEANE.

Engineers include: Alan Douglas, Andy Bradfield, Neil Davidge.

Personnel: Craig Armstrong (piano, keyboards, programming); Richard Norris (programming).

Audio Mixers: Mark "Spike" Stent; Andy Bradfield; Craig Armstrong.

Recording information: Air Studios, London, England; Angel; Ca Va Studios, Glasgow, Scotland; Christchurch Studios, Bristol, England; Olympic, Mayfair, Westside.

Arranger: Craig Armstrong.

Personnel includes: Craig Armstrong (vocals, conductor, piano, keyboards, programming); Richard T. Norris, Marius De Vries (programming); Paul Buchanan, Elizabeth Fraser.

Producers: Craig Armstrong, Marius De Vries.

NME (Magazine) (2/21/98, p.45) - 8 (out of 10) - "...The listener is urged to consider epic, abiding love, terror, mortality and awful suspense....this record is a lesson in how to be properly creative..."