1 Giant Leap

The 2002 project followed months of travel and recording across several continents. Catto and Bridgeman gathered performances and conversations, then worked with the material as the basis of a connected film and album. The result is more specific than a collection of unrelated guest appearances: the arrangements ask distinct musical parts to occupy the same scene.

My Culture, featuring Robbie Williams and Maxi Jazz, became a widely heard point of entry. The contrast between the sung refrain and the more spoken rhythmic performance gives the song a clear shape, while the surrounding material connects it to a wider musical environment. Braided Hair and Racing Away supply other routes through the first album.

The visual work gives faces, places and conversations a presence that an album necessarily handles differently. On the record, an instrumental phrase can return in another setting, or one singer’s entrance can change how the preceding part is heard. What About Me? in 2009 continues the larger project through another substantial music-and-film chapter. The central partnership remains Catto and Bridgeman’s, while the many participants belong to particular recorded encounters rather than an enormous fixed band lineup. That distinction helps preserve the interest of the work. Its appeal is not simply the distance travelled or the number of recognisable names involved. It is the act of arranging a relationship: finding a shared rhythmic space while leaving enough of each performance intact for the differences to remain meaningful.