Available this week on Bowers & Wilkins Society of Sound is the new album from John Metcalfe. Many of you will remember John from his work with Peter on the Scratch My Back and New Blood albums.
John Metcalfe is a composer, producer, classical violist, guitarist, pioneering A&R man and arranger to a host of A-list pop stars. As well as working with Peter, John has worked as an arranger for the likes of Morrissey, Coldplay, Blur, Bat for Lashes and The Pretenders and his contributions are always special. His ear for timbre and his instinct for musical drama make him a good collaborator – empathetic but never unassuming.
The album that John Metcalfe has made for Bowers & Wilkins Society of Sound unites the disparate strands of his musical life to date and demonstrates his confidence on a bigger stage, both literally and metaphorically. “This is me on my own, and there’s nothing between the audience and me. It’s my efforts, it’s my emotions, it’s my sensibilities on display”.
There are repeated string motifs that evoke the work of Steve Reich. His clean, single-note guitar lines, which he says are directly influenced by Durutti Column’s Vini Reilly (who John played with in the 1980s), are a prominent feature of the album. There are moments of affecting solo piano. There are elements of drum and bass, and of chamber music. Metcalfe’s tunes mutate effortlessly: from introspective fragmentation to a calm landscape of sonorous noises; from rhythmic strings to expansive anthems.
Via Bowers & Wilkins the album is available in two versions; the full album at 24 bit/44.1 kHz and also a special exclusive edition called The Vinyl Experience. This provides listeners with a high-resolution 96kHz recording of the actual vinyl LP.
‘Kites and Echoes’ the album now available on Bowers & Wilkins will also be available as a full commercial release on 8 June, via Real World Records, under a different title – ‘The Appearance of Colour’.