James Weeks belongs to the exploratory cutting edge of new music, and his works have been performed and broadcast worldwide. He concentrates on small ensembles and soloists, paring down music to a sparseness which bares the construction – which includes modalism, microtonality and other techniques – in total clarity. Here, works are sparse, chiefly quite tonally based and partly minimalist – repetitive but evolving phrases producing development over time; and time is one of the key inspirations – or at least how we occupy it. Composer Christopher Fox, himself one of the UK’s most important figures in new music, says of the album, “These seven works, these signs of occupation, are a welcome act of defiance, music that rewards careful listening and insists that the working together of musicians is a proper subject for our attention.”

Weeks speaks of the occupation of time with activity and creativity – and of occupation of place, in works which have no ostentation but use quite plain and ordinary sounds, which have their own beauty, to build up the texture of his works.