I forgot that was coming out. What do you think of it?
It's another orchestral album as you probably knew and I'm enjoying it it a lot- ended up listening to it three times last night ( just the first disc. The version I have has another disc of straight instrumental versions which I haven't gotten to yet ) and it's on again right now. Where the last album (
Scratch My Back ) was a collection of covers which Gabriel delivered with various degrees of success ( Bowie and David Byrne covers were stunning, Radiohead not so much ), here he covers his own work and his music lends itself to this kind of treatment more readily. Even the song selections you'd think would suffer from an orchestral interpretation by either having their groove stripped away (
Digging In The Dirt ) or being shoved perilously towards Muzak country (
Salisbury Hill ) come out of the process in a form which is completely enticing with zero cringe-worthiness. His daughter does a fair bit of singing on this album and she's quite good as well. It should also be noted that Mr. Gabriel appears to still be in fine voice. For the gearheads out there, the album is gorgeous sonically.
One more intriguing bit of info is included in the liner notes - the "response" album
And I'll Scratch Yours which I thought had been shelved is apparently alive and well and nearing completion. Depending on which artists have decided to contribute Gabriel covers ( fingers crossed for Bowie although he has said he's not going to do any "scratching" ), that could be an interesting proposition.
D.D.
