Peter Gregson explores the idea of absence in new Dolby Atmos® oriented album 'Patina'

The acclaimed London-based producer, composer and cellist Peter Gregson releases his new album Patina today (10 September) via Universal’s prestigious yellow label, Deutsche Grammophon.

Patina is the first of Gregson’s albums specifically created to be listened to in Dolby Atmos®. In short, this record, mixed at the legendary Abbey Road Studios, would not exist if this revolutionary new audio technology had not been invented.

“I didn’t want to write an album where each track finishes with a full stop,” says Gregson. “I needed there to be space in the music for the listener to bring the music into their world, to make their own decisions and have their own response … Nothing was recorded in big, lush rooms, everything is very intimate and I didn’t want it to sound like a Classical Record. I wanted to treat my cello as a voice – singing these modern ‘songs without words’.”

He goes on: “All the ingredients have to tell the same story – so much of this composition is held in the created space – the actual elements are as simple as can be, melody, harmony, bass line, but using the room, finding spaces, using harmonisers and vocoders and plate reverbs and gated reverbs and old tape… these are all found more commonly in the sort of electronic music that is permeating pop at the moment – I suppose this record is an intersection where electronic music meets classical music.”

The album is released with an accompanying video for “Cluster”, a beautifully atmospheric composition, symbolic of Gregson’s desire to “play with the idea of a minimal melody to lead the ear, but with an orchestration, arrangement and production around it that are constantly evolving and growing long after the pressure releases.”

“I write these records chronologically, starting at track 1 and working through until the end,” adds the composer. “But this is a melody I’ve had in my mind for a while. When I started to write this piece, it kept coming back into my mind, nagging to be involved.”

The video for “Cluster” was filmed by director Arran Shearing in British Columbia in late winter. “I tried to create a soft meditation on nature, urbanisation, and the aesthetic found in both,” notes Shearing. “Peter’s music seems to take all these elements from the creative process that other people ignore or disregard and brings them to the forefront in really exciting ways.”

Patina is out now, listen to the album in the new special high-quality spatial experience of Dolby Atmos® on Apple Music.