John Metcalfe
John Metcalfe

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

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27 September 2010
More Scratch My Back Reviews.... 
"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.

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John Metcalfe
John Metcalfe
John Metcalfe
John Metcalfe
John Metcalfe
John Metcalfe