Peter Gabriel is being guided by the moon. Following a similar rollout to 2023's i/o, which was the art-rock trailblazer's first album in over two decades, Gabriel is releasing a new single every full moon for his forthcoming album o\i. The follow-up to last month's "Been Undone" is called "Put The Bucket Down."
It was written and produced by Gabriel and the first version to be heard is the Bright-Side Mix by Mark ‘Spike’ Stent. Tchad Blake's Dark-Side mix will follow on the new moon, which is February 17. There is no release date for o\i yet, but the next full moon (the worm moon) is March 3.
The art for "Put The Bucket Down" is by Tomás Saraceno and titled Cosmic Spider/Web. It was made by three different type of spiders, Cyrtophora citricola, Nephila senegalensis and Holocnemus pluchei.
"This work, integrating with nature and co-creating with spiders, is fascinating. I think it's a beautiful thing and somehow there seems to be a connection with webs and nature and the brain so, for me, it fits right in," Gabriel shared. "In this case, Tomás heard the music and chose this image as something that he thought was appropriate. Thank you to Tomás and his team and please check out what he does.”
Check out the "Put The Bucket Down," this month's Full Moon update, and Gabriel's statement about the new single below.
As a side project, I am working on a show with the brain as the central core and there are a number of songs, some on i/o and some on o\i that will be part of that. This is one of those and it's a point in the narrative where we can both read and write thoughts and the person singing is not sure whether he has his own thoughts or not. Is he inside his own mind or inside someone else's?
The ‘bucket’ is all the crap that goes around our head all the time, so it is putting the bucket down to find your way forward…
I started building rhythmic elements around what I call a lop-sided loop and got quite excited. When we had the band play it, it really came to life so that feels good for me. The band and me working away is the bulk of the song, but when we were in the orchestral sessions I asked John Metcalfe to come up with a part - it was scribbled out on the day in the studio – which is ridiculously simple, but it serves the song nicely.
We're also blessed with horn players. I was very lucky on the last record to play with Paolo Fresu and then Josh Shpack on the tour and they've both done a version of the instrumental melody on this too.
