Grammy Award-winning violinist, composer, and sound engineer Simon Goff has teamed up with acclaimed, multi-platinum singer-songwriter Katie Melua and announced his upcoming collaborative album, Aerial Objects.
The album is set to be released digitally and on CD on July 15 via BMG and on vinyl on September 2. Alongside the announcement, Simon and Katie shared the stunning “Hotel Stamba”, the first single from the album.
PRE-ORDER THE AIR ITEMS HERE
DOWNLOAD/STREAM ‘HOTEL STAMBA’ HERE
WATCH THE ‘HOTEL STAMBA’ VIDEO HERE
Simon Goff and Katie Melua were two musicians who evolved in very different musical circles. Simon being closer to a line of artists who inhabit a zone between electronic, classical and post-rock, with his unique approach to sound seeing him work with some of the world’s most acclaimed musicians, including the Oscar-winning composer Hildur Guðnadóttir on scores for Joker and Chernobyl – both of which won him Grammy Awards. Katie, meanwhile, has released 8 UK Top 10 albums over a 20-year career littered with modern standards including ‘Closest Thing To Crazy’ and ‘Nine Million Bicycles’.
His latest album, album #8, was released in 2020 to huge acclaim and the accompanying acoustic album #8 was released in 2021 with contributions from Simon on “Remind Me To Forget” and “Maybe I Dreamed It”.
After that first collaboration on Katie’s album, the pair agreed that they immediately wanted to test the limits of what a collaboration could look like from a blank canvas.
An exhibition the pair attended at the iconic brutalist König Gallery building in Berlin was the catalyst for the album’s thematic terrain. A discussion of the emotional effects of different spaces and architectures sparked an exploration of landscapes, both man-made and natural, and blossomed into experimental compositions that move, moment by moment, between Katie’s song spaces and Simon’s immersive melodies.
With Simon at the musical helm and Katie’s imagination and lyrical freedom addressing how environments shape her thinking and state, this six-track collaboration disc is an exploratory project by two artists seeking beyond their borders. usual musical performances in unknown places.
On the album, Simon says: “The process of creating this album was a process of discovery and of exchanging space. The sensitivity necessary for this type of process has allowed many things to surface, from us discovering the differences in how we listen to and hear music and lyrics, to our own deeply personal life experiences. For me, the record is a representation of us exploring the space that exists between us and discovering a common voice within it.
Katie says “I was lucky enough to work with Simon when he appeared as a guest on an acoustic album I released late last year. During those sessions, and as As creator of immersive musical landscapes, Simon spoke to me about creating records that make the The listener feel like they’re inside the orchestra We agreed that we needed to create something new together – with a focus on how different environments affect the human condition.
She continues: “On Aerial Objects, the universes of our two artists have merged to create a new space: Simon on the violin, analog processing and synths, mingling with my universe of traditional records anchored around pop song. On a lyrical level, this work has allowed me the imaginative freedom to address how environments shape my thinking and my state; how the use of language and storytelling influences me; as well as the opportunity to finally reflect on a time in my life when I was recovering from a very difficult psychiatric illness.”
The album’s lead single, “Hotel Stamba”, was the second song the pair wrote for Aerial Objects and is a love song at the eponymous hotel in Tbilisi, Georgia, where Katie spent the first eight years of his life.
The accompanying video celebrates architecture, drawing inspiration from man-made spaces and spotlighting one of nature’s great architects, bees.
Katie describes the single as “an attempt to create a piece of music that makes me feel what this space made me feel when I walked into it”.
She continues: “‘Hotel Stamba’ is about a hotel in Tbilisi that radically changed my opinion of what was happening culturally in Georgia from 2017 to 2019. This building symbolizes both the past and the future of Tbilisi, a place where the streets are named after poets and writers.I’ve spent a lot of time in hotels and couldn’t believe my hometown had managed to create this beautiful hotel, both culturally sensitive, cool, comfortable and truly killer on the world stage.And that’s how this hotel made me feel.
PRE-ORDER THE AIR ITEMS HERE
