Arcade Fire A Silver Mt Zion Battles Beatles Brian Eno Bjork Cage Coltrane Cream Debussy Family Fennesz Feldman Godspeed You! Black Emperor Hanne Hukkelberg Hendrix Jan Jelinek Keith Jarrett King Curtis Led Zeppelin Murcof My Bloody Valentine Pink Floyd
Radiohead Reich Roland Kirk Sigur Ros Sakamoto Satie Sonic Youth Stravinsky Thom Yorke Velvet Underground Brian Wilson
Formed in the spring of 2007, The Metaphors are a unique instrumental group gathered to extend the sax, oboe and wind synth performance of Andy Mackay of Roxy Music.
Falling into no obvious existing genres, this post-rock combo crosses avant-rock, ambient, electronic, classical, jazz, experimental and R&B. The first project is of arrangements and variations on pop, film and show tunes, searching for the dark heart of the contemporary city.
Julia Thornton – known for her percussion work with musicians from Roxy Music to Jeff Wayne, and for her Classical albums - but here playing her principal instrument, the magnificent and strange concert harp, used, perhaps for the first time, as an electrified fully integrated and manipulated rock instrument.
TJ Allen – Bristol based experimental guitarist, laptop musician and producer, who uses bowing techniques, manipulated feedback, and live DSP to coax unusual tones from a familiar instrument. Known for his work with the likes of System Vertigo and Hazel Mills, and for his own material and remix work under the moniker, Aesoteric.
Hazel Mills - Pianist and vocalist of the modern classical avant-garde (Feldman, Reich, Cage) and LA-based KGRL Radio's featured artist of July 2008, who’s acclaimed debut EP, Butterfly, was released last year. A long-time collaborator of TJ Allen, her mesmerising fusion of contemporary experimentalism with live looping techniques creates stunning soundscapes and textures.
This eclectic line-up perfectly reflects Andy’s lifetime musical odyssey and obsessions from the rock ‘n roll sax, electronic experimentation and classical and film music. He was listening to all this, long before he co-founded Roxy Music with Bryan Ferry and Brian Eno, through their decades of performance, to the awareness of newer directions in music from contemporary bands including Battles, Sigur Ros and Godspeed You! Black Emperor.
The Metaphors recorded an album in five days last summer at Real World Studios near Bath, and mixed at The Hospital in London’s Covent Garden. London! New York! Paris! Rome! was produced by TJ Allen and Michael Boddy, engineered by Marco Migliari, and is due out late in 2008.
I want to let you know that War Brides and Struttin' Ground are being performed in a school concert in Leeds on July 1st - a new generation of musicians are highly appreciative of your compositions. The saxophones are playing your solo in Struttin' Ground straight of the record!
Fab Andy was the only Roxy bloke I missed backstage at Apollo/London in October 2001 so I couldn't thank him personally for all the "stronger through the years" sax vibes. Please keep on entertaining us, SaxMeister,you do it superbly !
Thanks for the add. Been a fan of andy since 1972. Wrote a letter to him when I was 14 and he wrote back to me in a handwritten letter. When I met him at an explorers gig he was with his wife and he said he rememebered sending the letter. He gave me a reed which he signed and dated. What a top bloke. He was my inspiration and why I took up the sax. Ade Sax xxxxxx
Meant to say that I enjoyed both gigs I went to, you're all absolutely amazing, and my favourite is Three Coins in a Fountain! Long may it rain!!! I look forward to more gigs and the CD coming out!
Thanks for the add guys! So great to hear two of my favorite legends (Mackay/Davies)"together" on Waterloo Sunset. Love your solo work Mr. MacKay, and I love Roxy Music too! And Julia Thornton is equally awesome. Keep up the great work. -Glenn
Bristol was superb and well worth the long journey. It was fantastic to hear 'The Pride and The Pain' and 'The Loyang Tractor Company' but equally importantly, keep pushing those boundaries - we need more of it in the world ...
Tracked down In Search of Eddie Riff its been such a long time since I last heard it, what a superb album, just how I remembered. Has the Metaphors album been released ?, How do we get a copy?, any more gigs lined up? will Eddie ever be found? so many questions so little spa
Brilliant, brilliant show @ the Exeter Phoenix. Many thanks once again for signing my Roxy albums and for the photo. Thanks to Paul as well for signing the CD's and hats off to the Metaphors !
Best wishes Marc
PS Has Julia got a MySpace site ? There is only an American currently on there with the same name !!
