On 6 April, Peter Gabriel releases the Bright-Side Mix of the title track “i/o” from his upcoming album. The song features Soweto Gospel Choir and was written and produced by Gabriel.
Gabriel says:
“This month the song is “i/o” and “i/o” means input / output. You see it on the back of a lot of electrical equipment and it just triggered some ideas about the stuff we put in and pull out of ourselves, in physical and non-physical ways. That was the starting point of this idea and then trying to talk about the interconnectedness of everything. The older I get, I probably don’t get any smarter, but I have learned a few things and it makes a lot of sense to me that we are not these independent islands that we like to think we are, that we are part of a whole. If we can see ourselves as better connected, still messed up individuals, but as part of a whole, then maybe there’s something to learn?” He explains further: “It’s been around for a long time as a title for this project. I always knew I was going to write a song called “i/o”, but the title came first.”
“i/o” sees Gabriel working again with Soweto Gospel Choir and he adds: I didn’t always hear the Soweto Gospel Choir on this song, but every time I’ve worked with them it’s always been fantastic. You can just feel the energy whenever they sing on this record, and on the song I did for Wall-E, it’s just joyous. It hits you in the heart”
“i/o” will come with differing mix approaches from Mark ‘Spike’ Stent (Bright-Side Mix), Tchad Blake (Dark-Side Mix) and Hans-Martin Buff’s Atmos mix (In-Side Mix), released later in the month.
Peter Gabriel will embark on a tour later this year.
featured photo by Nadav Kander