Peter Gabriel has chosen to make his new album, Scratch My Back, available as a 24-bit FLAC download exclusively through Society of Sound from March 2nd.

He has always been a passionate advocate for sound quality and felt that offering a high-quality version of his album was vital:

“I’ve always felt that the emotion lives in the detail of sound and that’s why we’ve made these recordings available here in the highest resolution we could, so if you have the time, the equipment and the enthusiasm, you can get as close as we did to the music.”

Scratch My Back is first in a series of ‘song exchanges’, where leading artists reinterpret each others music. It features orchestral re-workings of tracks such as David Bowie’s Heroes, Neil Young’s Philadelphia and Arcade Fire’s My Body is a Cage.

There is currently a free download of his stunning version of Bon Iver’s Flume on his website.

24-bit FLAC is a studio-master quality lossless format and means you can hear the album exactly as the artist and engineers intended.

And that extra quality pays dividends on this extrememly atmospheric, starkly arranged collection.

“When we recorded Scratch My Back we worked hard to get the best orchestral players,” explains Gabriel. “We had too many players for our own Studio at Real World , so we went to George Martin’s wonderful Air Lyndhurst to do the recording.”

The album will be available in two editions, the Special Edition CD will include a code allowing purchasers to download the 24-bit version via Society of Sound.

All Society of Sound full members will have access to the album in both CD-quality download and the superior 24-bit version.

The 24-bit format will be available from the 2nd March 2010.

The Track listing is as follows:

1. Heroes  (David Bowie)

2. The Boy in the Bubble (Paul Simon)

3. Mirrorball (Elbow)

4. Flume (Bon Iver)

5. Listening Wind (Talking Heads)

6. The Power of the Heart (Lou Reed)

7. My Body is a Cage (Arcade Fire)

8. The Book of Love (The Magnetic Fields)

9. I Think it’s Going to Rain Today (Randy Newman)

10. Apres Moi (Regina Spektor)

11. Philadelphia (Neil Young)

12. Street Spirit (Radiohead)