Robert Devereux is a Pittsburgh based musician. His music is written without any constraints of style. Any elements, from Tuvan throat singing to thrash guitar, from folk to techno, have been used in his music. He has composed scores for several student films, and his music has been performed at electronic and computer music concerts at Carnegie Mellon University.
For his first CD, Fungicide, he decided to take an unconventional approach. He decided to work on a collaboration with an author, Jeff VanderMeer. VanderMeer is one of the rising stars of dark fantasy. He is a World Fantasy Award winning author, and Locus Magazine has named him one of the ten best short story authors.
The music for Fungicide was written with two purposes in mind. The first was to serve as accompaniment to VanderMeer's book, City of Saints and Madmen. The second was to make the music enjoyable, even to those unfamiliar with his work. The music can be enjoyed by fans of dark and experimental music, even if they have not read VanderMeer's writing.
The nature of the writing also required an unconventional approach for the music, as the writing changes from story to story. Some stories are more normal, while other stories are hidden throughout the writing - hidden in footnotes, glossaries and appendices. Even in the normal stories, the narrative voice and style can shift to different styles.
Due to this variation in the writing, the music would also need to take different approaches from song to song. Some act as soundtracks for the writing, some act as the sort of music that would be played in his imaginary city, Ambergris, some act as music inspired by the writing. Some are not directly based on the writing, but serve as good accompaniment for the writing.