Cory Wong & Bruce Hornsby Unite On Stirring ‘Quotidian Fields’ Single Featuring Metropole Orkest

Acclaimed guitarist Cory Wong recruited legendary keyboardist/composer Bruce Hornsby to co-write and perform on his new single, “Quotidian Fields.” The track appears on Wong’s forthcoming studio album with Metropole Orkest, Starship Syncopation, which is due in October.

Cory Wong previously previewed Starship Syncopation by sharing its lead single, “Burning.” Based in The Netherlands, Metropole Orkest worked with Wong on the upcoming 10-track record as well as the 2020 live album Live In Amsterdam.

Live In Amsterdam featured a cover of Bruce Hornsby & The Range’s 1986 hit single “The Way It Is.” Cody Fry played piano on the track and handled lead vocals.

Cory Wong has been inspired by Hornsby for a long time. The guitarist discussed the “dream” collaboration in a statement, writing:

“I’ve been a Bruce Hornsby fan since I was a little kid. 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. When Bruce and I started talking about writing and recording a song together, he said that he had some old demos of instrumental tune ideas. He sent them over and there was one in particular that made me visualize something. 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 piano part he sent gave me just enough information to hear the rest of it in my head. I had a vision of a grandfather clock in the middle of the desert with mountains in the background. The main subject of the visual is the grandfather clock. I thought that Bruce’s piano should represent the clock. Something classic, iconic, and instantly recognizable. The vast expanse of the desert and sky is represented by the airy pad elements that you hear in the song (which is actually airplane ambience that Bruce recorded from his laptop microphone!!!).

The mountain range in the back needed to be represented by something unmistakable and iconic as well. When you hear a fretless bass, it is unmistakably that sound and that sound only, in the same way when you see Mt. Rainier or the Matterhorn from a distance…you know exactly what it is. It’s a reference. The guitar parts in this song have a steady rhythmic undercurrent that subtly drives the subdivision of the music just like the inward mechanics of a grandfather clock. The orchestra parts are meant to represent “where” the whole landscape is. The arrangement and orchestration is inspired by a lot of classic American classical music like Aaron Copeland. 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.”

Stream Cory Wong’s “Quotidian Fields” featuring Bruce Hornsby and the Metropole Orkest:

Cory Wong will embark on an extensive fall tour joined by guest guitarist Mark Lettieri (Snarky Puppy, The Fearless Flyers) at each stop with Couch opening on October 29. Scroll below to view a full list of Cory Wong tour dates.