Bryan Ferry announces new collaborative album, Loose Talk, with Amelia Barratt.
Featuring music by Bryan Ferry, with spoken texts by performance artist, writer and painter Amelia Barratt, the project signals the beginning of a new creative chapter for Ferry that blurs the lines between music, poetry and art.
Fifty-three years since Roxy Music’s iconic debut album arrived like a bolt-from-the-blue, his latest project is just as startlingly unexpected.
The sounds and shapes, and the spoken words they are set to, are unlike any previous Ferry album. This marks the first time Ferry has created new music for another writer’s words. The album consists of 11 texts, composed by Barratt, creating fascinating micro-fictions, simultaneously fragmentary and self-contained.
The track Orchestra is the first piece to be revealed from the project. The accompanying video was shot and directed by Bryan Ferry. Watch below:
Loose Talk
Discussing Loose Talk, Ferry said: “The whole experience of making Loose Talk has had an interesting newness about it. It seems to have opened a whole new chapter in my work. There’s a really strong mood to the work that Amelia does and I was very conscious of not getting in the way of her words. Hopefully, together, we’ve created something neither could do on our own.
“The nearest I ever got to doing pieces like this before would maybe be back in Roxy with In Every Dream Home A Heartache, and Mother Of Pearl. To some extent, those are kind of spoken monologues. I’m pleased that when we’ve played Loose Talk to people, they’ve said, ‘Oh, this sounds really different’. That’s what I’ve always wanted with everything I’ve done, or been involved in, to be: different. Different to what you’ve heard before, or seen before. That’s the whole point of being an artist: trying to create a new thing, a new world.”
Barratt added: “Loose Talk is a conversation between two artists: a collaborative album of music by Bryan Ferry with spoken texts by me. It’s cinematic; music put to pictures. There’s possibility for experimentation within a frame. And there’s a freedom in knowing exactly what my part to play is, then being able to pass a baton, stretching out creatively and knowing there is someone on the other side to take it further. Nothing feels off limits.
The collaboration began with a chance meeting at an exhibition opening, where Ferry grew intrigued to learn Barratt had started working with writing and performance in parallel with her painting. The partnership was first teased with the release of Star in 2024 – presented as the latest composition on the newly released 81 track career-spanning collection, Retrospective: Selected Recordings 1973-2023.
Tracklisting
Big Things
Stand Near Me
Florist
Cowboy Hat
Demolition
Orchestra
Holiday
Landscape
Pictures On A Wall
White Noise
Loose Talk
Due for release on 28 March, digitally, on CD, Black Vinyl, Green Vinyl and Clear Vinyl, the album is available to pre-order/save here.
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The post Bryan Ferry announces collaborative album with Amelia Barratt appeared first on Classic Pop Magazine.