Credit: Austin LordPeter Frampton has released a second advance track from his recently announced instrumental covers album, Frampton Forgets the Words, a rendition of the atmospheric 1982 Roxy Music gem “Avalon.”
The tune is available for streaming now, and a companion music video also has debuted at Frampton’s YouTube channel. The clip features footage of Peter and the members of his current backing group — keyboardist Rob Arthur, guitarist Adam Lester, drummer Dan Wojciechowski and bassist Steve Mackey — performing their various parts for the song separately in the same studio.
“[I]t’s just [a] very well-shot and -lit performance video, as if we were recording it,” the veteran guitar whiz tells ABC Audio, adding that “it’s as good as” the video for his cover of Radiohead‘s “Reckoner” — which was the first advance track released from his upcoming album — “but…more simplistic.”
Peter says he’s a huge fan of Roxy Music’s Avalon album — noting that he “felt it was one of the best engineered, recorded [and] written [records]” — and he decided to pick one of the songs to cover for Frampton Forgets the Words, settling on the title track.
“[T]hat was the one on this record that I feel I got [closest] to [frontman Bryan Ferry‘s] phrasing and to his sort of thrown-away performance on that,” Peter explains. “I’m proud of the sound of the guitar on that one, and also the way I sort of mimicked his voice, and then threw in some Frampton-isms as well, of course.”
As previously reported, Frampton Forgets the Words will be released on April 23. The 10-track collection, which you can pre-order now, also features versions of songs by Sly and the Family Stone, George Harrison, Stevie Wonder, Lenny Kravitz, David Bowie and others.
Here’s the full track list:
“If You Want Me to Stay” (Sly and the Family Stone)
“Reckoner” (Radiohead)
“Dreamland” (Michel Colombier featuring Jaco Pastorius)
“One More Heartache” (Marvin Gaye)
“Avalon” (Roxy Music)
“Isn’t It a Pity” (George Harrison)
“I Don’t Know Why” (Stevie Wonder)
“Are You Gonna Go My Way” (Lenny Kravitz)
“Loving the Alien” (David Bowie)
“Maybe” (Alison Krauss)
By Matt Friedlander
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