Peter Gabriel’s Scratch my Back is an intriguing release – an album of cover versions of pop and rock songs, but with an orchestral backing. It actually works, once you set your expectations accordingly.

The thing I want to draw attention though is a remarkable offer that comes with the deluxe version of the CD (worth it anyway for Waterloo Sunset, otherwise unavailable). You get a code with it that buys a three month trial of membership at the Bower & Wilkins Society of Sound site. The details are here:

The stunning super-high quality version of Peter Gabriel’s new album ‘Scratch My Back’ is available now from Society of Sound as a 24-bit FLAC download.

If you have bought an enhanced CD you will have a voucher code entitling you to download the album from us as well as giving you three months full membership. If you don’t own the album you can subscribe for six or twelve months to access it.

This means you get not only the high-res version of Scratch my Back (without Waterloo Sunset, unfortunately), but also “any past albums of the month” on Society of Sound, many of which are also in 24-bit FLAC. I counted 19 albums in all, with artists including David Rhodes, Ennio Morricone, Speed Caravan, Brett Anderson, Charlie Winston, Gwyneth Herbert, Tom Kerstens, Skip McDonald, and the Portico Quartet.

I’ve been working through them and enjoying what I hear.

This still begs the question, of course, of whether hi-res is audibly any different from standard CD quality. If this is a question that interests you, as it does me, then you get plenty of material to experiment with. In addition, the overall standard of the recording quality found here seems excellent.