Movement in Still Life


Movement in Still Life is the third studio album by American electronica artist BT. Released, in the United Kingdom on October 8, 1999, with a different version for the United States in 2000. The album features a transition towards hip hop and includes the singles "Godspeed", "Dreaming", and in the US, "Never Gonna Come Back Down". The original cover art is a photogram, Invocation, by Adam Fuss.

Background

In the United States, Movement in Still Life was entirely revamped for an American audience. This version edits every track by a few minutes and appears in an unmixed format with pauses between songs. The track listing was also re-arranged: original closer "Satellite" was moved to the middle of the record and was replaced by hip hop track "Love on Haight Street", while the album's opening was also moved to the centre of the record, and was replaced by "Madskills Mic-Chekka" and the US single "Never Gonna Come Back Down", which featured Mike Doughty of Soul Coughing on vocals. "Ride", "The Hip Hop Phenomenon", "Giving Up the Ghost" and "Namistai" were replaced with "Shame" and "Smartbomb"; the latter of which would be sampled for *NSYNC's international hit "Pop", which was also produced by BT. The Australian version of Movement in Still Life uses the UK track listing, but replaces "The Hip Hop Phenomenon" with "Never Gonna Come Back Down", mixing it into its surrounding tracks with transitions.
There exists two versions on vinyl: a double-LP version containing a variant of the UK track listing, and a quadruple-LP version featuring eight tracks, with one song per side; this second version wholly features extended mixes. Several of these extended mixes were later added to a Special Edition double-CD set from Hong Kong, which also included other extended mixes.

Singles

Movement in Still Life ties These Hopeful Machines with the most singles BT ever released from one album, largely due to the differences between the UK and US versions. Tracks like "Godspeed" and "Mercury and Solace" did well in the UK, but would not fare well on US radio, where "Never Gonna Come Back Down" and "Shame" performed well on American alternative rock stations. "Smartbomb" was used in several films, most notably in 3000 Miles to Graceland, and was used in the video game FreQuency. The Plump DJs remix of "Smartbomb" and "Hip Hop Phenomenon" were featured in the video game SSX Tricky. The Plump DJs remix also appears in Wipeout Fusion. A remix of "Never Gonna Come Back Down" was featured in FIFA Football 2002. "Ride" was originally released in 1998 as a single by 2 Phat Cunts, a group comprising BT and Sasha.
The track "Satellite" contains excerpts from the crew of NASA space shuttle mission STS-51-A during their post-mission press conference.

Track listing

2x vinyl version

Personnel