Fifty years later Selling England by the Pound, the masterpiece of a group with the biblical name — Genesis, first chapter! — of which he was the singer and incarnation, twenty years after the ascension (Up) of a last album composed of original material, here he comes back among us, his faithful, his disciples. Our Peter who was in heaven. Peter Gabriel himself. Human, very human, holding his head with both hands in the cover photo.
There is something. The world is going to ruin. All we have to do is see, we can’t see anymore. “ In the air the smoke cloud takes its form / All the phones take pictures while it’s warm », first sings the messenger. The song is titled Panopticom and “wonders about the future of a world that no longer knows how to distinguish truth from falsehood,” explains Gabriel in the commentary that arrived at the same time as the .wav file and the lyrics, two short days before the release , Friday 1er December, from the new albumtitled i/o (abbreviation of input/output, in English). This is intended as a call to see clearly, to dissipate the “cloud” (the digital as well as the climate): “ Panopticom, let’s find out what’s going on / Panopticom show how much is real “.
The mission
That’s the mission. The reason for this tenth solo album by Peter Gabriel, released on his aptly named Real World label. The need to speak, to sing, to reconnect with his adventure companions, the ace musicians Tony Levin, David Rhodes and Manu Katché. Also joined was magician ally Brian Eno. And a whole orchestral and choral crowd. And all the rest of us. The whole world, that is.
Of Panopticomwe find ourselves in the dock of the accusers and the accused (The Court): everything is double here, including justice, so blind that it mixes right and left. Even the musical pieces are duplicated. There are two mixes to choose from: the Bright Side, lighter and more artificial proposed by Mark “Spike” Stent, and the Dark Side, where sound excavator Chad Blake digs deep into the low mines.
Our bipolar nature
Interesting concept on paper, confusing for the ears: who wants to live an experience and its opposite? Instinctively, we go towards the pleasant first. Hell attracts inexorably, but there is something Machiavellian in this false impression of being able to decide. Would this devil Gabriel do it on purpose, to reveal our bipolar nature to us, to confront us with an unbearable truth?
It’s the opposite, he says in comments. The way he looks at our blue planet is quite simply realistic: we are passing through. In the same way that he made the release of each of the twelve pieces coincide with a full moon, the double disc turns and turns again, planetary movement and cycle of life: we are born, grow, age, die. “ Unpacked memories stored away / All the while the clock keeps ticking… »
Prayer time
And if there was a better way, he sings to us in Road to Joy : “ Show your eyes show your teeth / That’s the way to build relief / Touch my hair touch my knee / You can wake up every part of me “. What if we touched each other, beyond touch screens? What if we hugged each other instead of shutting each other down? The next piece, So Muchmeasures the task, notes the limits: “ This edition is limited / There’s only so much can be done “. The thing is that we don’t know what happens next: it ends on Live and Let Livetime will tell.
The music, during this journey, accompanies us. Beautiful, complex at times, more familiar than daring. This is the part of continuity: it sounds like Peter Gabriel, with the syncopations that are specific to him, the ballads that rock. The adventure is not there: Peter and his band reassure us with their solid and flexible musical presence. At the end, the Soweto Gospel Choir comes to pray with the archangel. It’s about changing the world, but not alone. The mission can only be collective, complete, assuming inner darkness and outer clarity. Hands outstretched.