Craig Armstrong's new album is in part the fruit of downtime during the making of the soundtrack to The Great Gatsby in Australia.

Its creation included orchestral recording sessions in Prague and Berlin, as well as one with the Scottish Ensemble in a London studio.

But its maker has no doubt where it is really from. "It is a Glaswegian record," he insists. "The singers are from Glasgow and they kindly agreed to work on it."

Armstrong reckons that his last film with Baz Luhrman may have had an effect on the new album. "Gatsby is about someone getting older," the 55-year-old composer explains. "As I get older I am much less self-conscious, and It's Nearly Tomorrow is influenced by what was around me.

"I like to mix classical and more modern contemporary sounds, and I think this is the sort of record I made when I was first signed to Massive Attack's label, working in that blurred area of film music, classical and pop."

Armstrong also hopes the album is narrative in terms of feel, if not literally. "It was written to listen to from start to finish. I spent a lot of time thinking about the order and it was recorded in that order like an old fashioned album.

"You don't get a lot of composers writing songs that are unashamedly about where you are a certain time of your life. I wrote most of the lyrics for the album on my own and, like Paul [Buchanan]'s records, I think it is reflective in some way."

Keith Bruce