Going Deep
“We are our thoughts, our perceptions control our moods. We have so many ‘choices’ now, but in reality we’re all doing the same thing. We’re very good at being told what to like.”
“Jaws is probably my favourite film ever,” says Robin Armstrong. “I saw it first in about 1980 when it came on TV, and I was truly freaked out by that head coming out of the bottom of the boat. It’s been a constant in my life, I watch it every time it’s on, and I always pick up something that I miss before. Nothing’s hit me in the same way since.”
The cover of the new Cosmograf album, Mind Over Depth, is an echo of that movie’s truly iconic poster: a great white shark charges out of the blue gloom towards an oblivious deep sea diver, its jagged mouth agape. As metaphors go it’s as powerful as it is blatant, and an apt portrait of the menacing music it represents.
Over the numerous interviews, Armstrong has come across as something of a contradiction. Artistically he is musically gifted, fiercely independent and single-minded. Cosmograf is absolutely a one-man show with occasional star performers contributing to the project since the 2009 debut, . His two best-selling albums, and , both make a virtue of his introspective nature, his Waters-like knack for a concept, and his cinematic approach to music. Personally, he’s warm and fun and sensitive, almost brittly so at times, and brutally frank about the realities of sailing solo in these proggy seas.
