‘I’m really moved by people’s response to it’ – John Metcalfe discusses the album Tree

Recorded at the legendary Abbey Road Studios and released on Real World Records last September, Tree is a stunning piece of work by this gifted musician, arranger, and producer. Through eight beautiful tracks it follows 24 hours in the life of a tree from day into night in a majestic, cinematic, emotionally captivating and immersive soundscape.

New Zealander Metcalfe emigrated to England as a child and was in one of Factory Record’s first bands, the Durutti Column. Indeed, he co-founded the Factory Classical label with Tony Wilson. A viola-player with a prolific imagination and taste for music, he has produced, arranged and collaborated with a huge range of artists: everyone from U2, Coldplay, Peter Gabriel, Blur, George Michael, Simple Minds, toured extensively with his band the Duke Quartet and also performed and recorded with the Max Richter Ensemble.

The idea behind Tree came about when Metcalfe went back to NZ as a young man with his wife and visited Tāne Mahuta, the largest known living kauri tree in the world.  The emotion that created within them is what he set out to capture with this album many years later.

With Real World releasing remixes of three of the tracks – Xylem, Root to Leaf, and Dusk – just before and after WOMAD, I wondered if this was a part of the way they would be played live. John, fresh from playing onstage in one of the encores for Coldplay’s Saturday night headliner at Glastonbury (“…I was in a cast of thousands…blink and you’d have missed me,” he says modestly), is adamant it will be:

“Yes definitely. It’s one of those things where, for me, the process of composing is always ongoing. Some writers leave things exactly as they are and move on to something entirely new but when I revisit completed work, months or even years later, I usually think, ‘oh, I could certainly try another approach’.

Tree – The Heartwood Remixes, released 2 August, 2024. Dusk (Heartwood Remix) is out now.
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“The premise for doing these remixes was to try and strip the music back in terms of texture and sonority to reveal more of the emotional core of the music. I was looking to see what I could actually take away. So, although the detail and complexity of the writing is still there, I’ve removed all instruments apart from the strings. And, of course, the record can’t survive without the strings, they are at the core of everything really. And it’s very obvious to say but the instruments are made of wood, they resonate as do trees in their own way so it felt very appropriate to go down that route.”

He says these remixes don’t deviate the sound much from the live experience although “…it made me re-think some sections of those tracks, particularly the second half of Xylem and most of all the second half of Root to Leaf which I think I’m now going to definitely always do as a string thing only.”

Already receptions to the live performances of Tree have been huge. “I don’t want to appear to be immodest, but you did ask!” he says. “I’m really moved by people’s response to it. You quantify it I suppose by standing ovations, by people coming up and talking about it afterwards. I think people are genuinely moved, not just by the music, but by the subject matter, and want to talk about trees or forests that are particularly special to them or woodland that has been lost to a bypass, that kind of stuff. So it has been emotionally quite specific”.

As for the challenges of playing it live John outlines that there are many moving parts any of which can go wrong. “Strings can break, lights may go down, technical stuff can happen, you may be feeling a bit ill or might be feeling distracted due to other stuff. We’ve all got lives and you don’t want that interfering in the wrong way with the connection to the music and the audience. I’m very fortunate in that that’s not really happened because I’m always very excited to perform. I love playing it live, I really enjoy that.”

The ensemble, The Xylem Orchestra, who will be performing the album at WOMAD are fellow string players who John has known for many years. “We’ve done lots of projects together and there’s a really nice connection between all of us. Although we haven’t done many gigs together of this specific project it feels like we have. It feels special.”

Metcalfe has always hit on a lot of themes in his work, or seemed to, and while the very personal emotional experience of seeing Tāne Mahuta resonates powerfully in this album it also touches on and highlights very important environmental concerns facing us all at this time.

John says he doesn’t do this deliberately, but it seems to be a big encompassing factor. “I mean ‘Absence’ (his last album) was about our relationship with death, the physical passing of people, how we maintain a relationship with them even when they’re physically no longer around. And this record is, in some sense, continuing that core principle of exploring an emotional relationship with something – in this case trees. And while it isn’t written as a protest record it is inevitable, when you write about a very crucial part of nature, that that element is almost built in. I wasn’t specifically going to say “this is not about protest and climate catastrophe” because it’s implicit. We have, I mean I certainly have, an emotional relationship with trees, trees that I see on a regular basis, (like the sycamore outside my studio), and I love the excitement of watching them change at dynamic times of the year, their beauty, their mystery. Yes, it’s vital that we protect them, that we plant lots of them, that we nurture them. But this music was more inspired by how trees make us feel and if there is any way we can articulate that. And although I can only describe express those emotions in my particular way, I hope the album is a sort of door that allows people to resonate with their own experiences and connections.”

A mesmerising and crucial part of Tree’s live performances and of the promo clips that accompany the album and the remixes are the videos by Jony Easterby. This is the first collaboration between John and Jony that came about after a ‘serendipitous’ meeting when John was playing a memorial concert at Cecil Sharp House in London two years ago for former WOMAD collaborator and musical mover-shaker the late Alan James.

“Jony was doing the visuals on the show and at that time Tree was virtually written but it was more a banging kind of show containing only elements of Tree. After the show my wife said, ‘whoever was doing the visuals was showing some amazing footage of trees and tree-based imagery while you were playing Tree’. I went to speak with him after the show and we hit it off. He’s amazing, he’s very committed to nature and its preservation and is very involved locally looking after trees, doing a lot of planting and forest care. And he’s done a lot of light and visual installations in woodland, forests, and local parks. So, it seemed like a match!”

And there are roots to be laid down for the future between the two: “Yes, absolutely. The work he’s done already has been wonderful. It’s important to have visuals in the show that are appropriate and become integral to the experience, rather than ‘here’s some random images we think you’ll like’. There has to be a reason for it otherwise just turn the lights off. I think Jony’s someone who’s been very sensitive, brought his own approach and emotion to the project. We’ve had some discussion yes but I’ve just said, ‘do your thing’ and he’s gone away and produced beautiful work.”

John also created and conducted the orchestral arrangements for Peter Gabriel’s latest album i/o, also released on Real World last year. “Working with Peter is always such a pleasure and i/o was an absolute thrill to work on. I spent quite a bit of time listening to the songs with him and talking carefully to understand the direction he wanted me to go. We recorded the orchestra in British Grove studio and used as many of the original New Blood Orchestra musicians as we could. It was a wonderful couple of days and it’s a fantastic record.”

So, what next for the talented Mr Metcalfe? Apart from ‘two or three things’ which he’s not allowed to divulge yet he says he has some ideas. “Thinking longer term there might be, not Tree 2 necessarily, but something continuing this kind of orchestral non-beat, non-vocals space. So, there might be something that turns into a series, but what it will look like I don’t know yet.”

And is he looking forward to the live WOMAD experience with Trees: “I can’t wait! I absolutely can’t wait! he beams. “And, actually, it’s a very nice time to perform. I’m hoping it will really blow people away at that time of night. I’ve always thought it would be a great piece of music to perform an hour before dawn so that Sunrise literally happens at sunrise. I think that could be really fantastic…”  Ideas for the future perhaps…

Tree is released on Real World as are the remixes, Dusk (Heartwood Remix) on 24 July and Tree – The Heartwood Remixes on Friday, 2 August, 2024.

John Metcalfe and The Xylem Orchestra perform at WOMAD, Charlton Park, in the Siam Tent at 11pm on Friday, 26 July, 2024.