GORDON GILTRAP ON HIS LATEST CHAPTER
The guitar great unveils Scattered Chapters, his latest collaboration with Paul Ward.
Veteran guitarist Gordon Giltrap has teamed up once again with keyboardist Paul Ward for a new album, set for release on November 4 via Psychotron Records.
Scattered Chapters features 16 brand-new instrumental compositions plus fresh recordings of Giltrap’s timeless signature hit Heartsong and One For Billie, which first featured on his 2013 record with Oliver Wakeman, Ravens & Lullabies. “What makes this album different to anything else I’ve ever done is that it’s very emotionally charged,” Giltrap tells Prog.
In 2018 Giltrap lost his son, renowned drum’n’bass DJ Jamie Giltrap, to sepsis at the age of 46. The songs Through Braden’s Door (Braden being Jamie’s child, and Giltrap’s grandson) and The Melody Weaver’s Son were initially written by way of tribute to close friend, conductor/string arranger Del Newman, who himself died in 2020. It was only later that Giltrap realised he was actually channelling his grief for Jamie through that music: “The Melody Weaver’s
Son is a story between a father and son, teacher and pupil, guru and disciple. I’m the melody weaver, Jamie was my son. No one will ever get over the loss of a child,” he adds. “You just learn to deal with it, you find ways to cope with it.”
Giltrap and Ward’s last album together was 2017’s The Last Of England, and they began Scattered Chapters during lockdown. Other contributions come from Irish pipes player John Devine, Giltrap’s friend and former presenter of TV show Magpie Jenny Hanley (who gives a spoken word performance on Precious) and, on the track Turning Earth,
Marillion drummer Ian Mosley. “Ian’s a lovely man,” Giltrap asserts. “He started working with me in 1978 on the tour for [album] Fear Of The Dark, and we just clicked. He went on to massive things with Marillion, but he’s always been in my life. You can’t go wrong with Ian Mosley.”
Another Giltrap friend collaborator, guitarist and Harry Potter soundtrack composer Nicholas Hooper, has written a book, also called Scattered Chapters,
comprising 18 short stories inspired by the songs on the record, with illustrations and extended artwork. (More at www.bit.ly/scatteredbook.)
There’ll be a vinyl edition of the LP next year, with, Giltrap says, a launch gig likely: “It’d be nice to do some of the material from the album with Paul, at a nice venue somewhere.”
“This album is different to anything I’ve done – it’s very emotionally charged.”