Photo Credit: Walter Goyen
Cory Wong has released a new single titled “Quotidian Fields,” the artist’s second advance offering from the forthcoming album Starship Syncopation. For his latest dispatch, the ace bassist and fusion virtuoso calls on Bruce Hornsby as a collaborator, who lends deeply stirring piano and his distinctively far-flung creativity to the expansive instrumental track. The acclaimed singer-songwriter and Dead veteran’s performance is centered in the composition, serving as the focal point from which Wong winds an intricate and emotive sonic story.
“I’ve been a Bruce Hornsby fan since I was a little kid,” Wong shares in a release. “There’s something about his piano sound that is so unique and has such a strong fingerprint. That is very rare when playing purely acoustic instruments. If you sat down ten piano players on the same piano, you’d know which one is Hornsby. I wanted to feature that in the most simple and elegant way possible for this song.”
With the track’s release, Wong has elaborated on the process that gave rise to the bold collaboration, divulging his process of expanding core melodic concepts and hazy creative visions into thoroughly honed compositions. Upon discussing a potential team-up and reviewing some extant instrumental demos from Hornsby’s prolific library, Wong found himself stuck by a transportive melody.
“It took me somewhere. I immediately started jotting down the vision of what I was seeing and imagined what the arrangement would sound like if it represented what I was seeing in my mind,” the artist divulges. “I had a vision of a grandfather clock in the middle of the desert with mountains in the background.” Fitting Hornsby’s piano as the clock, an ambient backing sample as the range and his own fretless bass as the mountains, the artist assembles a thoroughly evocative musical journey.
Adding final glints of color to Wong’s portrait are the soaring strings of the genre-bending Netherlands symphony Metropole Orkest. “The arrangement and orchestration is inspired by a lot of classic American classical music like Aaron Copeland,” the artist expresses. “It has a sort of ‘heartland’ out in the plains of the US sort of feel to it that gives it a feeling of open air. When I write instrumental music, it helps me to visualize because that helps me aim somewhere, and it helps me know when something is complete. It was a dream to collaborate with both Bruce Hornsby and the Metropole Orkest on this.”
“Quotidian Fields” is available to stream now. For more information on Cory Wong’s plans for 2024, visit corywongmusic.com.
The post Cory Wong Taps Bruce Hornsby for “Quotidian Fields,” Featuring Metropole Orkest appeared first on Relix Media.
