David McAlmont’s voice is one of the most praised instruments in British music. He has been favourably compared to Al Green, Marvin Gaye, Philip Bailey and Curtis Mayfield by The Daily Telegraph; The Guardian writes that he is “Both an extraordinary soul singer and one of British pop’s most chameleon-like performers”.

As a collaborator he has worked not only with film composers such as Craig Armstrong, David Arnold and now Michael Nyman, but he has also performed and recorded with Courtney Pine, Terence Blanchard, Cyndi Lauper and Guy Barker.

Most famously he created two memorable top 40 albums as one half of McAlmont and Butler, a partnership that yielded the unforgettable songs ‘Yes’, ‘You Do’ and ‘Falling’. He has also had success as a songwriter writing for himself and Bernard Butler, and with Gary Clarke, Boo Hewerdine, Tommy D, Pascal Gabriel, Craig Armstrong, Jools Holland; and with David Arnold and Don Black for KD Lang, the song ‘Surrender’ for ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’ and more recently for Shirley Bassey.

McAlmont and Nyman - The Glare
David explores pertinent subjects as varied as 21st century piracy (‘Going to America’), trafficked prostitution in Europe (‘City of Turin’), sexually-charged world leaders (‘In Rai Don Giovanni’), assisted suicide (‘Friendly Fire’), reality television (‘The Glare’), African orphan migration (‘Fever Sticks and Bones’), banking errors (‘Take the Money and Run’) and drug mules (‘In Laos’).

David felt strongly that the songs were most effective if written from the first person point of view of the individual characters discovered in the researched reports to create an emotional engagement with the subjects that is lost by the time their stories emerge in the glare of the 24 hour news media.

The result is The Glare, one of the most startling, beautiful and extraordinary records of the year.