News
03-12-2009
Scratch My Back in Peter's Full Moon video update
A little more of 'Scratch My Back' has escaped into this month's video. Sadly one factual update is that the release date has now slipped back until February 15th, but that news is, we hope, tempered by Peter's other revelations around the project. Anyone for 'Scratch My Back' Live?
19-11-2009
It'll be interesting to see what crawls out of the corpse
"There is as much magic in the sounds of things as there is in the notes," concluded Gabriel. "The studio can be the most boring place in the world, but when there's magic - when you open up a new vein - you wouldn't want to be anywhere else."
As this is World Philosophy Day, Helienne Lindvall's article in The Guardian around the conversation she had with Peter at the APRS Fellowship awards in London this week seems particularly apposite.
16-11-2009
shh...don't tell anyone you've seen 'Scratch My Back'
There's just 2 months and 9 days until you can get your hands on a copy of 'Scratch My Back'. The cover image remains a closely guarded secret, but we know we can trust you.
13-11-2009
'Scratch My Back' album release due on January 25th 2010
Peter will release his 'Scratch My Back' album on January 25th 2010 on Virgin Records in the U.K.
To help craft his recording of the album's eclectic array of cult favourites and classic tracks, Peter enlisted former Durutti Column member John Metcalfe as composer/arranger and the expertise of producer Bob Ezrin (Pink Floyd's 'The Wall', Lou Reed's 'Berlin') and engineer, mixer and producer Tchad Blake (Suzanne Vega, Sheryl Crow, Tom Waits).
Peter describes this as a very personal record with twelve songs performed only with orchestral instruments and voice. The album's richly diverse sounds include the sparse romance of Lou Reed's 'The Power of the Heart', the powerful musical journey of Elbow's 'Mirrorbal' and an epic arrangement of Arcade Fire's 'My Body Is A Cage.'
Peter and his collaborators recorded the album at George Martin's Air Lyndhurst Studios and the Real World Temple with further editing and mixing at his own Real Worlds Studios in Wiltshire. The first public hearing of the album came when Peter opened his set at last summer's WOMAD Charlton Park festival with a performance of Paul Simon's 'The Boy In The Bubble.'
The track-list and running order as follows:
Heroes (David Bowie)
The Boy in the Bubble (Paul Simon)
Mirrorball (Elbow)
Flume (Bon Iver)
Listening Wind (Talking Heads)
The Power of the Heart (Lou Reed)
My Body is a Cage (Arcade Fire)
The Book of Love (The Magnetic Fields)
I Think it's Going to Rain Today (Randy Newman)
Apres Moi (Regina Spektor)
Philadelphia (Neil Young)
Street Spirit (Radiohead)
02-11-2009
Beaver alert
A brief update from Peter, filmed before he headed off to a meeting of The Elders. We hear news of the 'Scratch My Back' album projects which is now nearing completion and pick up on Peter's current hot tips, Portico Quartet and Charlie Winston.
30-10-2009
All You Need is love
Take a look at this recording of 'All You Need is Love' by Bandaged Together - a collection of the great and the good in the music industry, radio and TV - in aid of this years BBC Children in Need appeal.
Peter Gabriel can be seen at the top and tail of the track.
22-10-2009
Inspired by a find at WOMAD, 'Isla' is new on Real World Records.
At the 2004 WOMAD Rivermead festival, Duncan Bellamy and Nick Mulvey came across a Hang, a small Swiss pan drum like a flying saucer. They built a sound-world around the instrument, adding double bass, drums and saxophone with Milo Fitzpatrick and Jack Wylie to form Portico Quartet and produce a Mercury nominated album.
Their second album 'Isla' on Peter Gabriel's Real World Records builds on this sound.
"With 'Isla', produced by John Leckie, Portico have found their mojo: a thrumming, intensely textured and dynamic sound flowing between sax, bass, drums and hang. (Looks like a wok, sounds like a steel drum.) The subtle electronic shadowing and beefed-up bass recall EST, while the lead track traces a Balkan/Gypsy line and repetitious rhythmic measures reference Reichian minimalism without making you feel ill. All tracks are memorable and hang together like a suite. Brilliant."
The Independent on Sunday (UK)
14-10-2009
So+ on iTunes
So has just become one of the first albums to get the 'iTunes LP' treatment - it now comes with four videos, several 'B-sides' and the enhanced 'iTunes LP' content.
