Peter Gabriel will release his ‘And I’ll Scratch Yours’ album project on September 23rd via Real World. The LP features Peter Gabriel songs performed by artists including Arcade Fire, Lou Reed, David Byrne, Feist, and many more.
“Rather than make a traditional covers record, I thought it would be much more fun to create a new type of project in which artists communicated with each other and swapped a song for a song, i.e. you do one of mine and I’ll do one of yours, hence the title – Scratch My Back – And I’ll Scratch Yours.”
– Peter Gabriel
‘Scratch My Back’ was originally released in 2010 and now makes its second coming, this time accompanied by ‘And I’ll Scratch Yours’. Peter is delighted with how many artists signed up for the project and bearing in mind the calibre and careers of those artists whose songs he selected, it’s rather incredible that all but two songwriters were able to reciprocate. (For those uncompleted swaps, Joseph Arthur and Feist willingly entered the fray with their respective versions of Shock The Monkey and Don’t Give Up).
The reciprocating artists opted for differing approaches to Peter’s songs. A few chose to radically reinterpret the original material, in the process leaving it barely recognisable – Lou Reed’s snarling Solsbury Hill or the frighteningly futuristic version of Mother Of Violence by Brian Eno, co-writer of David Bowie’s Heroes covered by Gabriel on ‘Scratch My Back’. Other contributors include Arcade Fire (Games Without Frontiers), Elbow (Mercy Street) and Regina Spektor (Blood Of Eden).
The album is available in two versions:
Scratch My Back / And I’ll Scratch Yours – both sides of Peter’s song-swap project in one place, as was originally conceived
And I’ll Scratch Yours – a stand alone version of the covers of Peter’s work
Track-list:
I Don’t Remember – David Byrne
Come Talk to Me – Bon Iver
Blood of Eden – Regina Spektor
Not One of Us – Stephin Merritt
Shock the Monkey – Joseph Arthur
Big Time – Randy Newman
Games Without Frontiers – Arcade Fire
Mercy Street – Elbow
Mother of Violence – Brian Eno
Don’t Give Up – Feist feat. Timber Timbre
Solsbury Hill – Lou Reed
Biko – Paul Simon
www.petergabriel.com
TheWaster.com | Flipside
07.25.2013
