Hot on the heels of releasing a monumental career-spanning box set last year, Roxy Music legend Bryan Ferry is continuing his prolific new output by sharing ‘Florist’, a creative team-up with performance artist, writer and painter Amelia Barratt.
The collaboration marks a new taste of their forthcoming collaborative art album, Loose Talk, which is due to reach our ears on Friday, 28th March.
Bryan Ferry and Amelia Barratt – ‘Florist’
Billed as being “unlike any previous Bryan Ferry album”, Loose Talk marks a bold new chapter for the music legend, blurring the lines between music, poetry, and art. Fifty-three years after Roxy Music’s debut, Ferry once again defies expectations with a project that manages to be a huge departure from everything else in his catalogue, but still remains deeply connected to his musical legacy.
On the LP, Ferry sets another writer’s words to music for the very first time. Across eleven pieces, Amelia Barratt’s evocative micro-fictions are brought to life by Ferry’s soundscapes in a constantly evolving duet.
“The whole experience of making Loose Talk has had an interesting newness about it,” Ferry explains in a press statement. “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.”
He continues: “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.”
While Amelia Barratt adds” “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,” she continues. “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.”
You can pre-order Loose Talk here or watch the music video for ‘Florist’, which was shot and directed by Ferry himself, up above.
Further Reading
Bryan Ferry Releases New EP ‘Restrospective: I Thought’
Bryan Ferry Releases ‘Star’, His First New Music In Over A Decade
Roxy Music Legend Bryan Ferry Announces 81-Track Album Collection
