On November 13th, Art Schop released Death Waits I: Music And Fine Arts. Art Schop is also the alter-ego of musician, writer, philosopher and technologist, Martin G. Walker. The name honors Walker’s favorite philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer. The album showcases the Brooklyn based musician’s inspirations in other musicians, artists and historical figures. The visions of these talented people are grasped by Schop who creates music to pay tribute to their legacies. In Death Waits I, subjects include Lou Reed, David Bowie, Will Oldham, Richard Wagner, Michelangelo, Sappho and more.

Listen below to “Back to Earth”, the song about David Bowie. Each track on the album is a piece of art in which Walker, as Schop, may emulate the vocal mannerisms of the song’s subject. This is evident in his vignette for Bowie.

“David Bowie…loomed so large for me in my formative years,” says Walker. “I listened to his albums until the tapes wore out (I put them on cassette tapes so I wouldn’t wear out the vinyl) And also because I found it so difficult to write a song about him. I’d had many failed attempts, and “Back To Earth” took longer to write and was more complex than any other song I’d ever written. So when the song was finished and the arrangement came together it was such a great feeling. It also gave me a new appreciation for Bowie as an artist. When I took apart some of his songs to figure out how they worked, I just marveled at his inventiveness and skill as a songwriter and performer.”