Bryan Ferry releases his first original music in over a decade with ‘Star’, a new song set to feature on the upcoming album Retrospective: Selected Recordings 1973-2023. The 81-track collection is a celebration of Bryan Ferry’s peerless career as a solo artist, spanning a period of over 50 years of music and 16 solo albums, bringing the story right up to the present with a snapshot of his latest work.
‘Star’ began as a sketch by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross of Nine Inch Nails, developed by Bryan Ferry and Amelia Barratt into an anxious, darkly gleaming slab of pounding post-techno. The song sees Ferry continuing to explore uncharted creative territory, with Barratt and Ferry creating a duet that blurs the lines between art, music and poetry.
Speaking about ‘Star’ Bryan Ferry said: “Star is a collaboration with the painter and writer Amelia Barratt. 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.”
The 81 tracks that make up Retrospective: Selected Recordings 1973-2023 (pre-order here) illustrate an adventure in music like no other. A story in songwriting that has been unfolding for more than 50 years will now be celebrated in this kaleidoscopic compendium of Bryan Ferry’s music. The release is a celebration of the performer who has carved out a place as a master modern interpreter of song via a dizzyingly inventive series of cover versions that range from Bob Dylan to Amy Winehouse, Rodgers and Hart to the Velvet Underground via Tim Buckley, Shakespeare, sea shanties and Sam and Dave.
Then there’s the songwriter who, in singles like 1985’s ‘Slave To Love,’ has crafted music that stands amongst the defining recordings of their era, yet sound unique and timeless to this day. There’s the futurist conjuring vortices of electronica; or the passionate revivalist, presenting songs and styles from the 1920s and 1930s as if they were the hot sound of tomorrow calling. There’s the figure out on the pulsing nightclub dancefloor, tripping the light fantastic; and the guy who wants only to be alone, slipping away into brooding, bittersweet backstreets where everything turns neon and noir.
Marking the start of this career-spanning celebration, Bryan Ferry recently released ‘She Belongs To Me’. A powerful re-imagining of the 1965 Bob Dylan classic that brings the story full circle.
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