Working closely with string arranger Thomas Lea (Adele/Bonobo/Rhye), Catching Flies, real name George King, has created his most emotional and cohesive project yet. A beautiful, moving record, with sounds that unmistakably come straight from the heart, it’s all held together by a singular sense of purpose and that trademark intricacy. ‘I wanted it to feel as intricate and as layered as possible. I tried to really push myself musically. The challenge was – how do I make this sound much bigger than a guy sitting in a room with a laptop and a MIDI keyboard’
Typically wide-ranging in genre, the album highlights his ability to effortlessly manoeuvre and experiment across the spectrum of electronic music, from hip-hop to house, from soul to neo-classical. The album is led by new single ‘Halo,’ which sees him at his best - a melodic mesh of harp samples, vocal chops and a soaring string quartet finale. It’s highly textured, deeply melodic and effortlessly marries live instrumentation with warm electronic beats. ‘Spring’ utilises a vocal sample he found whilst touring China, and ‘The Last Phone Call’ merges a spoken word voice-note from a friend with a vocal recorded on his iPhone on Hampstead Heath - ‘I was pushing my bike and heard this guy singing in the distance, hidden in the trees… I had to EQ out the sound of my bike wheels turning to make it work.’ ‘Tides’ caused the most headache - ‘it went through about 20 different versions and ended up having 270 tracks of audio - there’s so much in there that you don’t necessarily hear on first listen.’ The album also includes the ‘absolutely brilliant’ (Lauren Laverne, BBC6 Music) hit single ‘GLY’ which has received over 20 million streams to date and came with remixes by revered British dance/pop band Hot Chip, and Ninja Tune’s DJ Boring. Also featured is piano piece ‘Diamonds,’ which has gathered artist support from the likes of Nils Frahm and Jungle. The album will be released in combination with a live video performance featuring a string quartet and a harpist.
Catching Flies has just hit 1.8 million monthly listeners on Spotify – no mean feat given he is a truly independent artist. It has been a busy couple of years. He was nominated for a BAFTA for his composition work on a video game, he played a headline show at the iconic Musee D’Orsay in Paris with a string quartet in collaboration with Cercle, and has toured North America, the UK, Europe, India, and China. He has also recently worked with Erick The Architect and Lord Apex.
