John Metcalfe | john-metcalfe.co.uk | Official

My arrangement of 'Heroes' for Peter Gabriel was used for the end credits and trailer of 'Lone Survivor' starring Mark Wahlberg.

Labels: Peter_Gabriel, soundtrack

Release date for Peter Gabriel's album 'New Blood' which I co-produced and co-mixed is now set for 11th October 2011 coupled with release of a limited 3D cinema release of two Hammersmith Odeon shows recorded back in March. There will be some promo appearances plus a tour to South America and Mexico in November. During the summer we completed a tour to the U.S including a show at Denver's unique Red Rocks amphitheatre.

Labels: Peter_Gabriel

"Metcalfe's arrangements are stunning, too – they mirror Gabriel's mix of whispers and howls on Arcade Fire's My Body Is a Cage .... They make everything sound movie-score epic.... It also makes certain that's there's plenty to discover in each track even if, as is the case with songs like Street Spirit, you've heard them thousands of times in their original form."
BBC Music

"Scratch My Back opens stealthily with David Bowie's Heroes, and resolves, on a note of ambiguous calm, with Radiohead's Street Spirit (Fade Out). In between, John Metcalfe's arrangements ramp up the drama to operatic heights. Elbow's Mirrorball is voluptuous and moving, while Arcade Fire's My Body Is a Cage could be the showstopper from some apocalyptic musical – the orchestra opens tense and restrained, then suddenly blooms like a drop of blood in a glass of water. Every song sounds like a modern classic – you suspect Gabriel and Metcalfe could make something heartrending out of the Black Eyed Peas' Boom Boom Pow."
The Guardian (5 stars)

"Which raises the questions: Can his hesitant, cowering singing style compete with a billowing army of woodwinds and strings? And will the orchestra stumble into the most common pitfalls of their pairing with rockers — weighing the songs down, robbing them of momentum or trying to compensate for all that by sawing away unmercifully?
Fear not. Gabriel and arranger John Metcalfe dodged every one of those bullets with bracing invention. The strings create individualized and dramatic settings for the pieces, throwing an ideal light on Gabriel's sensitive readings....The cleverness of Metcalfe's arrangements actually gives the songs extra action. They're rich plays now, as exciting as anything fired by drums and flailing with guitars."
New York Daily News

"The arrangements by John Metcalfe (a veteran of the classical-crossover world through his work in the Durutti Column) are either fully orchestral or simply piano-based; they expose the narrative and melodic bones of each song, connecting Paul Simon to John Adams and Bon Iver to Arvo Part."
LA Times

If you want you can read more full reviews here.

Labels: Peter_Gabriel

The whole year has been pretty much taken up with Peter Gabriel's 'New Blood' tour and recordings. We completed the European and US tour back in May and had a blast picking up some great reviews along the way. We used the UK orchestra for shows in London and Berlin but picked up local orchestras in Paris, New York and Los Angeles. It was fascinating to work with players from different countries and hear their approach to the arrangements. The venues in the US were amazing particularly Radio City in New York and the Hollywood Bowl in L.A. It was thrilling to hear the music performed there and to be so well received by the audiences despite our initial concerns they might not want an entire evening without drums/guitars etc.
In July we recorded the tracks from Peter Gabriel's back catalogue at Air Studios including some of his biggest hits and some less well known. The UK orchestra were just amazing and we got some truly outstanding performances. Peter's engineer, Dickie Chappell, and I will be mixing the album this Autumn after the current tour finishes.

Labels: Peter_Gabriel

John Metcalfe joins Peter Gabriel in bringing the 'Scratch My Back' experience to select venues early in 2010. The New Blood tour features Peter Gabriel, orchestra, no drums, and no guitars.

March 2010

22 - Paris, Bercy
25 - Berlin O2
27-28 - London O2 Arena

Tickets available from Ticketmaster [CC Hotline: 0844 8560202]

If you can't make it along (or even if you can) then follow the Full Moon video blog.

Scratch My Back is released 15 February 2010.

Happy New Year everybody!

Labels: concerts, gigs, Peter_Gabriel

The release date of 25th January 2010 for 'Scratch My Back' has been announced along with the official tracklisting of the songs Peter Gabriel is singing (putting to rest a lot of speculation).

This is from the website:

"Peter will release his 'Scratch My Back' album on January 25th 2010 on Virgin Records in the U.K.

To help craft his recording of the album's eclectic array of cult favourites and classic tracks, Peter enlisted former Durutti Column member John Metcalfe as composer/arranger and the expertise of producer Bob Ezrin (Pink Floyd's 'The Wall', Lou Reed's 'Berlin') and engineer, mixer and producer Tchad Blake (Suzanne Vega, Sheryl Crow, Tom Waits).

Peter describes this as a very personal record with twelve songs performed only with orchestral instruments and voice. The album's richly diverse sounds include the sparse romance of Lou Reed's 'The Power of the Heart', the powerful musical journey of Elbow's 'Mirrorbal' and an epic arrangement of Arcade Fire's 'My Body Is A Cage.'

Peter and his collaborators recorded the album at George Martin's Air Lyndhurst Studios and the Real World Temple with further editing and mixing at his own Real Worlds Studios in Wiltshire. The first public hearing of the album came when Peter opened his set at last summer's WOMAD Charlton Park festival with a performance of Paul Simon's 'The Boy In The Bubble.'

The track-list and running order as follows:

Heroes (David Bowie)
The Boy in the Bubble (Paul Simon)
Mirrorball (Elbow)
Flume (Bon Iver)
Listening Wind (Talking Heads)
The Power of the Heart (Lou Reed)
My Body is a Cage (Arcade Fire)
The Book of Love (The Magnetic Fields)
I Think it's Going to Rain Today (Randy Newman)
Apres Moi (Regina Spektor)
Philadelphia (Neil Young)
Street Spirit (Radiohead)'

There are some bits of footage from the orchestral recording sessions on the Peter Gabriel website if you want to check them out.
petergabriel.com.
It's also a beautiful cover - you can get a look here;
petergabriel.com

Needless to say I am mightily excited about this coming out. It's been a great way to spend the year.....

Labels: Peter_Gabriel

I have been busy working closely with Peter Gabriel on his 'Scratch My Back' project. This is a song swap with some of the world's most legendary artists and is due for release in the Spring. My role has been to help re-interpret the music of the songs he has chosen to cover - quite a responsibility as some of the songs are among the best known in the last 40 years. The album will be acoustic, using only orchestral instruments (no guitars, drums or world instruments) and range in size from sparse chamber music to much fuller orchestral sounds. We recently recorded the orchestra at Air Lyndhurst studios (George Martin's studio) in London which was an enormous thrill hearing the arrangements performed by some of the best performers in the UK. We performed one of the songs, Paul Simon's 'Boy In The Bubble' at Womad back in July. I have been working a lot down at Real World studios editing and mixing and will be continuing with that in the Autumn and it's been a huge privilege to work with the great man.

Labels: Peter_Gabriel

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