A panoramic view of some of the major influences that informed the Scott Walker aesthetic; going some way perhaps to explaining this most enigmatic and influential of artists. 3CD Box Set with a 36-page booklet. The mahogany voice of Scott Walker dignified pop in the 1960s and exemplified what Johnny Marr described as "that gothic and beautiful gloom that was as much about England in the 60s as was 'Day Tripper'. " Both as lead singer in the Walker Brothers, and then as a solo artist, Scott created a succession of unforgettable recordings - including 'Make It Easy On Yourself', 'The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Any More', 'Montague Terrace', 'Copenhagen', 'Boy Child' - that gave the 60s a deeper, more poetic dimension; but, allergic to fame, he turned his back on it all to devote himself to composition for film and his personal ventures to the outer limits of pop. In the America of his youth, Scott encountered Mozart and Haydn, West Coast jazz, the cinema of Ingmar Bergman and the "Beats"; while later in Europe, he was captivated by the troubadour style of Jacques Brel and the guile of the French singer-songwriters Charles Aznavour and Léo Ferré. At one point, he even entered a Benedictine monastery to study Gregorian chant. The dark, brooding soundscapes of 20th century classical composers; Sibelius, Delius and Mahler encouraged the melancholic arrangements that adorn the eternal Scott's '1' to '4' of 1967-69, while the critically celebrated, fertile, but uncompromising late works evidence the abstractions of Webern, the tone clusters of Ligeti, the sharp contours of Berg, the grave beauty of Schubert lieder.