Peter Gabriel has shared the third track in the long rollout for his 11th studio album, o/i. Like 2023’s i/o, which reactivated his recording career after a 21-year hiatus, the iconic singer-songwriter’s new project is steadily unfolding with this year’s lunar calendar, with “Dark-Side” and “Bright-Side” mixes by Tchad Blake and Mark ‘Spike’ Stent to be steadily released on the full moon and new moon of each month.
“Been Undone,” the newly completed track traces its roots back to a fragment from another era of Gabriel’s career, this recalling the 2012 retrospective tour that saw him reviving 1986’s So in its entirety, in the company of the musicians that originally supported the ground breaking record on the road. “On the Back to Front tour, along with Playing for Time, it was one of the songs that was played without words, as a work in progress,” the artist reflected in a lengthy release. “The song actually began with a melody that my son Isaac was playing with and I thought, oh, that’s really nice – I could build that into something.”
“On that tour, we had our wonderful Scandinavian contingent of Jennie Abrahamson and Linnea Olsson who was also playing cello. I’d always liked Linnea’s cello line so it ended up on this final recording. John Metcalfe added some other elements for the orchestral sessions in 2022.
There is also more of the magnificent Orphei Drängar choir, another Scandinavian element, who also featured on This Is Home on the i/o record. It’s a very strange mood that they create, powerful and emotional and it’s a great way to start a song – which was Brian Eno’s suggestion. I’ve always liked spiritual, inspirational music because sometimes people get to a different place when they remove themselves and are just present with this feeling of something else out there. Although I’m not religious myself, I definitely have the feeling for it and that’s what I was hoping we would have with the choir at the front, that you go straight away into this other world…
“What Lies Ahead” strikes a ruminative tone over the low hum of the orchestra and choir as Gabriel ascends by inspiration to evoke hope and possibility in tender reaches to falsetto. Six decades into his recording career, the image of the inventor cuts a compelling parallel to his own measured, steady sonic tinkering, with a wisened perspective lending uncommon stability to his curiosity. The unique artwork that Gabriel selected for the third single’s cover is “Birth Tear / Tear”, 1982 embroidered fabric work by feminist artist and educator Judy Chicago.
“‘Birth Tear / Tear’ shows the pain of birth and, clearly, no man will ever have an understanding of what that really is, but giving birth to an idea has many (less painful) parallels,” Gabriel said. “I’m delighted that she was happy to let us use it.”
The Fat Angel Sings 