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Biography
Soundbite
Art Schop strives to explore and communicate certain uncomfortable and perhaps beautiful truths about the nature of our existence through words and music.
Short form
We consist of stray dust, spit out from the cataclysm that we call the big bang, now congealed, recombined, and infused with a conscious awareness of ourselves and the world around us. All we have are our perceptions and the ability to act on those perceptions. An artist takes the raw material of his or her senses and renders from it something new, something shaped by consciousness. The result can never be truth or beauty, but an intimation of the truth and beauty that revealed itself to the artist, which can then be glimpsed and perceived by others.
Art Schop’s particular artistic impulse compels him to look hard at the world and to try to see it for what it is. An impossible task, but better than the alternative.
Full Length
Does it matter who I am, what else I do or have done? Art Schop’s music could exist suspended in an anonymous vacuum, like a satellite floating in the void. But some people wish to know about the artist, refract the listening experience through the prism of the meta-story. So, here it is:
In the midst of recording his first studio album, 'nylon,' Martin G. Walker began work on a separate and completely different project -- songs exploring philosophical, psychological, historical themes. Incorporating snippets of found sound from around New York, and exploring how the recording process itself could become part of the art. This project took Walker outside himself. The music, it seemed, was passing through him not emanating from him. A song about the imagined inner life of Arthur Schopenhauer prompted the adoption of the moniker Art Schop.
Born in the UK, Walker studied Physics at the University of Oxford, where he learned that he would not be a physicist -- there were others better suited to that pursuit. Later, as a computer consultant, he learned that neither was he suited to the world of business and commerce. He began writing music.
After reading Schopenhauer’s “World as Will and Representation,” Walker developed an original philosophical theory that connects the universal laws governing the physical world with the foundation of human morality and the meaning of life. Which resulted in the book: “Life: Why We Exist And What We Must Do To Survive.” This philosophy informs Walker’s life and art, and, in particular, pulses through the latest album Starguide. Walker has also written fiction for adults and children.
Walker moved to New York after watching Sonic Youth videos on MTV in London. He lives in Brooklyn.
The Art Schop albums Death Waits I and Death Waits II were recorded over the course of several years in collaboration with the musical genius Jimi Zhivago. Jimi sadly passed away in November 2018. Jimi was a loyal friend and tireless musical partner. He will be very greatly missed.