A Glimpse of Peter Gabriel's 'i/o'. This is the new stuff.
It’s been 21 years since 'Up'. Now, 'i/o' is here. Let’s Glimpse the road to joy.
As usual with my Glimpses, this is not a traditional review. This is: How did Gabriel get here? What have we got? Where is he going? All with a dash of my experiences and reflections.
When Up was released in 2002, Gabriel had about 130 songs in various stages of development. Ten of these comprised Up, and another (Burn You Up, Burn You Down) appeared on promo copies of the record but was omitted from the full release. So, only about 119 songs to find a home for, plus the others Gabriel would write later.
i/o was an alternative title for Up, and - even though Up became a popular album title at that time - the i/o powder was kept dry. REM announced they were releasing their Up after Gabriel’s title had been revealed, yet released their album before Gabriel’s. "I have been living in an Up world for four years now and have no wish to come down”. 1
The plan was to use the extra songs as a relatively quick follow-up to Up, called i/o, in 2004. But Gabriel toured Up extensively, and - of course he did, it’s Gabriel’s style - became interested in other projects, musical and otherwise, thus pushing i/o further into the future.
When Gabriel fans lament the lack of a new album in over 20 years, they mean new songs. We did have the Scratch My Back and New Blood releases. Scratch was an album of covers, in which Gabriel followed the rules; only record a cover if you take the song in a different direction. Blood offered a selection of existing Gabriel songs, now arranged orchestrally. Both had merit, but they were not the new songs we craved.
It should be noted that Peter Gabriel was not merely being lazy at this time. I had many a debate on social media with people who insisted he was retired, with no interest in making new music. He did tour the US with Sting on the Rock Paper Scissors tour in 2016; ultimately the shows were due to come to the UK, but Gabriel’s need for a hiatus scuppered that aim. Inescapably, his wife was seriously ill, and he had a duty to be her carer.
I insisted he would be back. I had no insider knowledge - if only. It was just a matter of observing the signs and seeing what was afoot. During 2013 - 2016 Gabriel sporadically posted images of ProTools files, showing the song title file names - unknown titles …
There was also a campaign of re-releases and digital compilations. The soundtrack of the Growing Up Live film was issued as an album for the first time. Songs previously contributed to films were gathered in one place on the 2019 album Rated PG. Later that year, unreleased songs, B sides, alternative mixes and the like were compiled into the lengthy digital download Flotsam and Jetsam.
Some interpreted these moves as a simple tidying up of his catalogue before formal retirement. I couldn’t believe it, because - for all his side projects - Gabriel is fundamentally about music. He’s now 73 - no spring chicken, but Elders still have much to contribute.2
Gradually, it became apparent that Gabriel was again fully engaged with his music. Reports from long-term core members of his band - Tony Levin, Manu Katche, and David Rhodes - informed us they were at Real World Studios, recording. The project was gaining momentum.
Gabriel doesn’t borrow from anyone else’s playbook. The classic release strategy is to launch a marketing campaign, stream a couple of tracks in advance of the full release as ‘singles’, and open for pre-orders.3 This was not the strategy for i/o.
Instead, the Full Moon Club, last sighted during the pre-release campaign for Up, was resurrected. This time, it was located on Bandcamp, and for a small monthly fee, exclusive Gabriel material became available.
The most recent Full Moon Club update
A new track was released on every full moon (with a different mix on every new moon) throughout 2023. Alongside these releases Gabriel commenced the i/o tour, heavily featuring the new songs. Although he flagged in advance the amount of new material he would be playing, it was surprising how many felt it should be a greatest hits set. Clearly, without the opportunity to assimilate the new songs by listening to the album, as is traditional, the gigs were an unusual experience; but do you want a usual experience at a Gabriel gig?
During the US leg of the tour, an audience member repeatedly called for Don’t Give Up after every song that wasn’t Don’t Give Up. I had a parallel experience years ago at the Brighton Centre, where a guy loudly called for Games Without Frontiers between songs. At last, the moment arrived and Gabriel finally played Games, at which point the guy promptly left, missing about a third of the gig. There’s no accounting for folk.
All of which brings us to 1st December 2023 and the full release of i/o; twelve, new, long songs.
It shouldn’t matter that these songs are now all gathered together in one place - unless you’ve avoided listening at all until the album was released - because we’ve had a year of new music anyway. Naturally, I made a playlist throughout the year, including the FLAC files and rehearsal/demo versions available via the Full Moon Club. And yet, listening to the album, with the cover art (more about that in the coming Immersion - see below), finally seemed like the real experience. There are no surprises, bonuses or any music that’s different in any way, and that’s okay.
i/o is Gabriel using his mature voice to full, emotional effect. The New Blood orchestral rearrangements by John Metcalf can now be seen as something of a dry run for the sometimes subtle, sometimes dramatic use of strings here.
This is an ‘album’, a musical journey, of the kind I was thinking about when I first started LP (although the 40 minute barrier is comprehensively smashed). This is not a concept in the sense of storytelling, rather a themed collection of songs about the human condition at the personal and sociological/psychological levels. A collection of beautiful, uplifting songs that could only have been written by someone with Gabriel’s talent and life experience. A masterpiece.
Unusually, there are two versions of the album - the Bright-Side Mixes by Mark ‘Spike’ Stent and the Dark-Side Mixes by Tchad Blake. There will also be a box arriving in March 2024 with the Dolby Atmos In-Side Mixes by Hans-Martin Buff on Blu-ray.
The last Peter Gabriel album?
Unlikely. If the next one takes twenty years Gabriel will be 93 when it appears, but there’s no reason why it should take that long. He’s got many songs written, and there’s no reason to believe he’ll stop writing new ones. He’s mused about the possibility of more full moon releases continuting into the future. We’ll see.
For now, enjoy i/o. What sense do you make of it?
This post is a Glimpse of i/o. Those kind enough to support my writing with a paid subscription will receive a longer post about Gabriel’s solo career, including more about i/o, in the first week of January 2024, with further Immersion deep dives about other bands and artists to follow throughout the year.
Thanks for reading,
Ian
http://www.realworld.on.net/Gabriel/moment/album.html (Wayback Machine archive 06/12/1998)
Gabriel is a member of the Advisory Council of the Elders Foundation
For example, this is the strategy fellow ex-Genesis member Steve Hackett has just begun for his album, due in February 2024
Do give ‘i/o’ a go. Most of the songs are growers, though, so you might want to listen several times. I hope you enjoy it, Jeremy.
I have nothing on point to add to this, but I'll drop my story that I once sat in as lead vocalist with Peter Gabriel's band sans Peter Gabriel at a house party in Nashville. I sang Blue Moon of Kentucky, which the band knew. Then I tried for "Dreams" by Fleetwood Mac, which they did not know. Nashville then was a strange and fabulous brew.