Deluge

At last recognition for one of the biggest name in Classical Crossover! Jocelyn Pook has a musical pedigree which stretches back to the turn of the 80s when the lady was doing sessions forABC,Siouxsie & the Banshees and many other Indie bands.In 1983 she joined singer songwriter Virginia Astley,along with Audrey Riley and Ann Stephenson,appearing on both stage and record.
All detailed on her Yahoo website.
In the later part of the decade came the Communards where she and another string player Sonia Slany planned the Electra Strings and many albums followed on Sonia's Village Life album.Sonia had once been an auxiliary Shopping Trolley,a band which featured Melanie Pappenheim,who would end up on this,the first Jocelyn Pook album and carry on through the next ones.
On this CD is a remarkable piece of music called "In Requiem Aeternum" and the piece which was used for the Orange Mobile Phone ads "Blow the wind/Pie Jesu",which samples the voice of Kathleen Ferrier.A CD which demands to be listened to,not just filed away.Jocelyn's influences are basically Classical,like Virginia Astley's,her music rooted in the past yet looking to the future.Concerts are in Arts Centres and she's filed in Classical in the stores which stock her music.
Since DELUGE,Jocelyn has become a noted film composer and has new material due shortly

"Deluge" contains the music written by Jocelyn Pook for a performance by a Canadian dance company, designed to "[link] up the two millenia - the year 1000 and the year 2000 - by means of myth, legends and fears about the end of the world." She "wanted the music to embody ideas and influences from both these ages, and to draw upon cultures as diverse as Hinduism and Christianity, Judaism and Islam." The result is a broody, eclectic and at times minimalistic fusion of medieval chant motifs, lush modern harmonies, childlike lead vocals, traditionally nasal world folksongs and chamber-style strings that alternately drone menacingly and pulse like heartbeats. It's an interesting and effective mood, though a bit laid back for a depiction of the end of the world. But to listen straight through can get a little monotonous sometimes, so "Deluge" might be one of those albums whose tracks are better appreciated when mixed up with others. That said, "Blow Thy Wind" is a gently winning song that is engagingly developed, and the drum-laden "Goya's Nightmare" also stands out from the rest. The songs of "Deluge" were later re-released or remixed by Jocelyn Pook at the request of Stanley Kubrick, to serve as the soundtrack for his film "Eyes Wide Shut," and those versions are available on the CD entitled "Flood." Try Pook's other work, like "Untold Things" and the soundtrack for "The Merchant of Venice," and compare with James Newton's haunting, emotive soundtrack for M. Night Shyamalan's "The Village," and also (speaking of the end of the world) Richard Gibbs's laid back, minimalistic soundtrack for the "Battlestar Galactica" miniseries.