Soundtrack from Electric Black is the culmination of over thirty years of holding onto a musical vision that has developed within Taylor since he was a small child growing up in 1970s Britain. This vision began to find expression with the JTQ’s debut album ‘Mission Impossible’ and, since then, relentlessly gigging, recording, listening, studying and composing tunes with a view to raising the bar in the UK music scene. Taking his inspiration from the truly great film composers such as Bernard Herrmann, Lalo Schifrin, Henry Mancini, Quincy Jones and John Barry, Taylor wanted to make exciting, cinematic orchestral music that, as he puts it, “grooves like a mother fucker” in a way that retains an identifiable UK vibe; punky, angry and hip. Taylor had always lamented never being able to convince a record label to fully commit to making the record he wanted to make – or, more accurately, needed to make: “Labels would usually go halfway, give me some budget for a big horn section or a decent studio. But I guess, ultimately, they didn’t share my vision, so the record never got made – until now.” Realising it takes a substantial musical education to create orchestral music, Taylor applied to study composition and orchestration at various music colleges but was rejected. As a result, to familiarise himself with how musical scores look and work, he joined a local church choir.
Taylor eventually gained the confidence to compose and score out his own Mass using a four part choir, which led to composing for string quartets and, finally, full orchestral scores.