The album, recorded at AIR Lyndhurst and Real World Studios during 2009, consists of cover versions of twelve songs by various artists, using only orchestral instruments and voice.

[18] Initially planned to be released simultaneously with Scratch My Back in 2010, several artists were late in delivering their songs or ultimately declined to participate, necessitating changes to the companion album's concept.

[20] However, as completion of the latter dragged out, it was instead decided to release a series of double A-sided singles with one song from each album every new full moon during 2010 on iTunes.

[25] The third in the series, Gabriel's take on "Flume" paired with Bon Iver's seven-minute long version of "Come Talk to Me" was released on 30 March 2010.

Reviewer Mat Snow writes: "He [Gabriel] and his top-of-the-range collaborators (...) have created an album of great insight into the untapped potential of familiar songs, a profound re-imagining made manifest in an orchestral soundworld as rich and thrilling as ever recorded at Air (...)".

On the downside Snow describes the version of Lou Reed's "The Power of the Heart" as "a misstep" and Randy Newman's "I Think It's Going to Rain Today" as "superfluous".

He concludes the review on a positive note by saying: "An album to make you happy feeling sad, Scratch My Back gets better with each play; it might just turn out to be the best surprise birthday present of the year.

"[39] In Metro, Arwa Haider awarded the album 3 stars out of 5 and commented: "Its most impressive quality is sensitivity; these are elegant orchestral arrangements … It’s sporadically successful; Gabriel saps the life from Paul Simon’s The Boy in the Bubble and somehow over-eggs Arcade Fire's My Body Is a Cage" and concluded "this is exceptionally classy karaoke.

"[40] In The New York Times, Jon Pareles wrote: "Covers albums don’t get any more idiosyncratic or high concept than Scratch My Back.