The genius of
Craig Armstrong lies in his flair for the dramatic and sweeping orchestration, which are then fused with mild electronic influences and digital processing. But the true test involves looking beneath all of the production to find if his compositions can stand on their own. Stripped to their bare essentials of piano with minimal accompaniment, many of
Armstrong's most recognizable pieces are revisited here under a different light. Many of the selections quietly served as incidental or background music for films (inclusions from Moulin Rouge, Romeo and Juliet, and Love Actually are all present), while others appeared on previous solo releases. Extracted from their original settings, they present a haunting quality that's only intensified by the sparse instrumentation.
Piano Works offers the skeletal blueprints of these compositions, but also brings forth the honesty and clarity of these ideas stripped of grandiose pretense.