John Metcalfe – the Durutti Column violaplaying master who for years has been a composer and arranger for the likes of U2, Coldplay, Peter Gabriel and Blur, as well as cofounder with Tony Wilson of the Factory Classical label – had been composing music spontaneously, instinctively, when the idea of Tree arrived. An album that immerses the listener in twenty-four hours of the life of nature’s most majestic creations, it came from a desire in John to write at scale – perhaps a natural reaction for a composer writing out of the silences and solitude of our recent pandemic years.