John Metcalfe - Tree (2023) [Hi-Res]

John Metcalfe’s new album, eight immersive compositions that take the listener through twenty-four hours in the life of one of nature’s most majestic creations. The Durutti Column viola-playing master - a composer and arranger for the likes of U2, Coldplay, Peter Gabriel and Blur, as well as co-founder with Tony Wilson of the Factory Classical label – had been composing music spontaneously, instinctively, when the idea of Tree arrived. The album came from a desire in John Metcalfe to write at scale – perhaps a natural reaction for a composer writing out of the silences and solitude of our recent pandemic years. “The pieces I was writing were big and trying to be bigger, so I knew they had to be to do with something – and then I thought about one of the most profound experiences of my life.”