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Peter Gabriel - new music dawns as the full moon rises

Andy Rawll

Bring on the full moon - Welcome to i/o

THE NEWS

On Friday 6th January, the date of the first full moon of 2023, Peter Gabriel revealed ‘Panopticom’. Blessed with the signature slow-burn intensity of the multimedia polymath’s best work, this is the first song to be released from his long-awaited new studio album i/o and was self-written and produced, with recording sessions conducted at Real World Studios in Wiltshire and The Beehive in London.

“The first song is based on an idea I have been working on to initiate the creation of an infinitely expandable accessible data globe: The Panopticom, says Gabriel. ‘We are beginning to connect a like-minded group of people who might be able to bring this to life, to allow the world to see itself better and understand more of what’s really going on.”

‘Red Gravity’ image by David Spriggs - Click-to-play ‘Panopticom’

THE SONG

Panopticom (the song) is powered by long-time collaborators Tony Levin, David Rhodes and Manu Katché, with sonic embellishments courtesy of Brian Eno and additional backing vocals from Ríoghnach Connolly of The Breath. The song’s subject matter is inspired by the committed work of three groups: Forensic Architecture, Bellingcat and the pioneering human rights organisation WITNESS that Gabriel co-founded in 1992.

The release of Panopticom on the full moon is no coincidence and celestially inspired. The lunar phases will guide the release plan in 2023, with a new song from i/o revealed each full moon.

“Some of what I’m writing about this time is the idea that we seem incredibly capable of destroying the planet that gave us birth and that unless we find ways to reconnect ourselves to nature and to the natural world we are going to lose a lot. A simple way of thinking about where we fit in to all of this is looking up at the sky… and the moon has always drawn me to it.”

PG portrait by Nadav Kander

THE ART

Each new release of music will be accompanied by a specific piece of art, ‘we’ve been looking at the work of many hundreds of artists,’ says Gabriel, and Panopticom features the work ‘Red Gravity’ by David Spriggs.

“It was the theme of surveillance that connected me with the work of David Spriggs because he’d done a piece relating to that. David does this amazing stuff using many layers of transparencies so you get these strange creations with a real intensity to them. Part of what he does is imagine what art might look like a few years in the future and then try and create accordingly and I think he’s done that very successfully in this particular piece.”

THE WAIT

Although you have to trace back to 2002 for the release of his last studio album ‘Up’, Gabriel’s work ethic and creativity have remained unremitting. Highlights, from the intervening period, include his Grammy-winning song ‘Down to earth’ (from the 2008 film ‘WALL.E’), the sublime and fascinating pair of collaboration albums, ‘Scratch my back’ (2010) and ‘New blood’ (2011) plus 2016 digital singles, the Mohammed Ali tribute ‘I’m amazing’ and the Grammy-nominated ‘The Veil’, written for the Oliver Stone film ‘Snowden’. 2019 saw the release of two compilation albums that captured the best of his work for the cinema (‘Rated PG’) and B-sides and rareties compilation ‘Flotsam and Jetsam’.

THE CYCLE

So when will the next track from i/o be released or more specifically, out in the garden, when will the moon next seem very bright?

For the astronomically less-informed, on average there’s a full moon every 29 ½ days. Whereas, it takes just over 27 days for the Moon to complete a single orbit of the Earth, as the Earth and Moon are also orbiting the Sun on a different, longer schedule. This is why it takes around two more days for the Sun’s rays to illuminate the Moon fully, as it had done the previous month. As such, the Moon completes twelve full cycles of all its phases (from full to new to full) in around 354 days. That’s eleven days short of a calendar year, which means that every two to thee years, there are thirteen full moons in a year. This is what is refered to as a ‘Blue’ Moon, based on its infrequency, rather than anything else.

In certain cultures, each full moon in the lunar calendar has acquired its own individual nickname, as a form of timekeeping. These have been passed down through the ages with many of the names now in common use. Here are the dates and names for the thirteen full moons that will rise in 2023, that indicate that we should expect the next track from i/o to be released on February 5th to coincide with the Snow Moon.

THE RELEASE

No matter how fitting, based on the infrequency of Gabriel album releases, let’s hope that we don’t have to wait until the Blue Moon in August, for the full album release of i/o. It’s already been a long, long time. Hasn’t it?

Personally, I’m rooting for a May release date. What could more appropriate - a flower?

  • January 6: Wolf moon

  • February 5: Snow moon

  • March 7: Worm moon

  • April 6: Pink moon

  • May 5: Flower moon

  • June 3: Strawberry moon

  • July 3: Buck moon

  • August 1: Sturgeon moon

  • August 30: Blue moon

  • September 29: Harvest moon

  • October 28: Hunter’s moon

  • November 27: Beaver moon

  • December 26: Cold moon

(Sources: NASA and Royal Museums Greenwich).

THE CLUB

As further enticement to embrace this new heavenly body of work, Gabriel has also just announced the waxing of a special subscription-based offer on Bandcamp. Subscribers to “The Full Moon club” will have access to additional content, including demos, alternative mixes and live recordings, that will coincide with the now-ongoing monthly cycle of release of tracks from the forthcoming i/o album.

To sign-up, visit the subscription page, where you can choose how much you want to contribute to the cause (with a minimum contribution of £3 per month), with the following benefits:

  • New music available to stream instantly (via the free Bandcamp mobile app) and also available as a high-quality download.

  • Special subscriber-only music

  • 15% discount on merchandise.

Click image for tour details

THE TOUR

UK and European live shows in 2023 are already on sale, including the following dates in the UK and Ireland:

THE BACKGROUND