We’ve seen many odd pairings down the years, but we’d never have Bryan Ferry and Trent Reznor down as natural musical bedfellows
Yet the refined old art school cove and the industrial supremo have teamed up on a new song - Star – that’s an extra track on Ferry’s new Retrospectives boxset. It’s Ferry’s first new original track in a decade since 2014’s Avonmore album.
The track is derived from a demo that Reznor and his Nine Inch Nails partner Atticus Ross sent to Ferry and retains their throbbing electro backdrop behind Bryan's trademark whinnying sighs. It's rather reminiscent of the Noughties electro-pop group Ladytron; appropriate given that they themselves took their name from a track on Roxy Music’s debut album.
The third spoke on this wheel is the Ferry’s co-vocalist: Glaswegian performance artist, painter and writer Amelia Barratt. Of her, Ferry has said: “A couple of years ago I helped her record an audiobook here in my studio. I was very impressed by her writing, and this is the first song we did together. I’m very excited about this new work - there’s a lot more to come.”
It’s the second new track Ferry has released in the last few weeks, the other being a cover of Bob Dylan’s She Belongs To Me, originally a track on Dylan’s Bringing It All Back Home album.
In the meantime the Roxy leader will release Retrospective on October 25. It’s a five disc overview of his five decade long solo career that includes a straightforward best of, a selection of his best covers and a CD of the Bryan Ferry Orchestra, a project that sees him reinterpret his own back catalogue in the style of a 1930s jazz band.
Most intriguing is the disc of rarities. This includes a version of Roxy Music’s Mother Of Pearl with Ronnie Spector on backing vocals, a cover of Don’t Be Cruel with Elvis’s old bandmates Scotty Moore and DJ Fontana that was originally recorded for a Sun Records tribute album, as well as a version of John Lennon’s Whatever Gets You Thru The Night, another tribute album offcut that is finally seeing the light of day.
Aside from Roxy Music’s brief reunion in 2022, Ferry has been fairly quiet this last decade. But the appearance of Star at least gives fans some hope that a full album might finally appear at some point soon.
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