Legendary producer Trevor Horn has teamed up with a host of A-list artists for a new solo album that reworks classic hits across a 30-year timeframe from 1982 to 2012.
Among the big names featured on the 11-track Echoes – Ancient & Modern are Seal, Iggy Pop, Marc Almond, Rick Astley and Tori Amos plus husband-and-wife team Toyah Willcox and Robert Fripp.
Released on 1 December via Deutsche Grammophon, a first single – Grace Jones’ Slave To The Rhythm as reimagined by Lady Blackbird – is available now.
Speaking to former Art Of Noise collaborator Paul Morley, Horn discussed how he chose the tracks to rework – and the artists to help him transform those originals. “Finding the right singers was as important as finding the songs, probably more so,” he recalls. “It’s an album by me, as a kind of auteur. I’m the artist commissioning other artists rather than them hiring me.”
As well as producing Echoes – Ancient & Modern, which reinvents iconic songs with different vocalists and new orchestral arrangements, Horn also sings backing vocals and plays keyboards, bass and guitar. “Building a feeling into a song is a tricky, intangible thing to do,” he offers. “There are lots of technical and psychological shortcuts to recording a song, but none to actually make it feel real. That remains a studio secret.”
Echoes – Ancient & Modern opens in the 21st century with Kendrick Lamar’s Swimming Pools (Drank), now given a strings-laden cinematic revamp by Tori Amos. Horn notes: “It sets everything up like it’s the beginning of a song cycle.”
Elsewhere, a Rick Astley-fronted version of the Yes chart-topper Owner Of A Lonely Heart now boasts a new dance groove, Toyah reboots Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s Relax, while Seal takes on Joe Jackson’s Steppin’ Out and Marc Almond tackles Pat Benatar’s Love Is A Battlefield. From the end of the 80s, we hear Iggy Pop’s version of Depeche Mode’s game-changing Personal Jesus. “Iggy adds another truth to whatever he does,” notes Horn, and Trevor supplies lead vocals for the closing track – Roxy Music’s Avalon: “It’s a little like at the end of the show. I’m saying, ‘This is me – the producer, the band leader, but also the performer – signing off. For now...’”
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