Four Kinds of Horses is the fifth song to be released from Peter Gabriel’s forthcoming album i/o. This is the Bright-Side Mix by Mark ‘Spike’ Stent. Released on the full moon, 5 May 2023.

Written by Peter Gabriel and produced by Peter Gabriel and Richard Russell, Four Kinds of Horses was recorded at Real World Studios in Wiltshire, The Beehive, and Copper House in London.

“Four Kinds of Horses ” began on Richard Russell’s project ‘Everything Is Recorded’. He’s a friend (and founder of XL Records) and asked me to pop into his studio. I came up with chords, melodies, and words on top of a groove he was working on. We tried a few things that didn’t work, so it laid dormant for quite a while. Then I started playing around with it again and changed the mood and groove, and something else emerged with a better chorus.”

Several things triggered ideas for the song as it developed, including the Buddhist parable of the Four Kinds of Horses, which describes different ways a student can approach their spiritual practice. There is also a focus on “the interesting overlap of religion and peace on the one hand and violence and terrorism on the other. There was also a wonderful film by Hany Abu-Assad called ‘Paradise Now, ’ which shows two young men who end up being trained to become terrorists, and it’s a real insight into where the head goes.”

As well as Russell, who set things in motion, Four Kinds of Horses also features Brian Eno on synths, which “sounded like electric worms to me,” says Gabriel. “As soon as I heard one, I thought they would make a great three-dimensional wallpaper of sound and asked Brian to create eleven more.” John Metcalfe again provides string arrangements, “beautiful work and as the song progresses, the strings play a key role,” and backing vocals from Peter’s daughter Melanie, “another lovely moment for a dad.”

Continuing the theme of working with a different artist for each song release, this month’s track is accompanied by a cover image featuring the work of Cornelia Parker.

This month we have a fascinating artist, Cornelia Parker, who does extraordinary work. When we were originally looking at the Art from Us project, I’d seen some of her stuff with exploding rooms and had been fascinated by that, so I’m really happy that she agreed to work with us on this. The photogravure technique of William Henry Fox Talbot was an inspiration for her in this piece and some of the other glass-based images in the series. I fell in love with this particular work – it’s called ‘Snap.’

Just like the previous full moon releases, Four Kinds of Horses will come with differing mix approaches from Mark ‘Spike’ Stent (Bright-Side Mix), here, plus Tchad Blake (Dark-Side Mix) and Hans-Martin Buff’s Atmos mix (In-Side Mix).

As well as new music, Peter Gabriel is about to embark on a tour with dates in the UK, Europe, and North America on sale now. livenation.com / petergabriel.com

Further details on the release plans for the full album will follow.

Cornelia Parker: https://www.instagram.com/corneliapar…
Cover image: Snap by Cornelia Parker

Peter Gabriel’s Full Moon Club update for June 2023, where he discusses the release of Road to Joy, the sixth track to be taken from the forthcoming album i/o.

Listen to the full track Road to Joy from Sunday, 4 June: https://lnk.to/PG21.

Written by Peter Gabriel and produced by Peter Gabriel and Brian Eno, Road to Joy features the Soweto Gospel Choir, a string arrangement from John Metcalfe, and contributions from several of Gabriel’s current touring bands; long-time collaborators Tony Levin (bass), David Rhodes (guitar) and Manu Katché (drums) as well as two newer members Don E (bass keys), ‘he did the funkiest bass line that you can imagine’ and Josh Shpak (trumpet), ‘beautiful playing, a super musical guy.’ The song was recorded at Real World Studios, Bath, The Beehive and British Grove, London, and High Seas Studios, South Africa.

‘I’m working on a project which is partly a story focused around the brain and how we perceive things, and this song connects to that. It deals with near-death experiences and locked-in syndrome situations where people cannot communicate or move. It’s an amazingly frustrating condition. There have been some great books and films about this subject, but at this point in our story, the people looking after our hero manage to find a way to wake him up. So, it’s a lyric about coming back into your senses, back to life, back into the world.’

The song is one of the last tracks to emerge for the i/o record, but it has some DNA from an earlier project; ‘It was very late in the record that we got to this. There had been a song that musically I’d started, I think, around the OVO project called Pukka. It was very different from this, but it was the starting point for returning to this song. I just felt there was a good groove there, and I wanted something else with rhythm, so we tried a few things while working with Brian Eno. The excitement and energy in the song were something that I was getting off on. I felt we didn’t have enough of that for this record.’

As with previous full moon releases, Road to Joy comes with an artist of the month, and for this June release, that artist is Ai Weiwei and his work ‘Middle Finger in Pink’.

‘I’m a big fan of Ai Weiwei, both as an artist, designer, and human rights campaigner. He’s incredibly brave and regularly risks the wrath of the Chinese government. But his work is exceptional, often political, and quite extraordinary.
When I was hustling him, I think he had no idea who I was, so it was an uphill battle at first, but he was open to talking, and we got to know each other and hung out a little bit.
I was delighted when he agreed to participate in the i/o project and generously sent us three designs. He has this middle finger image that he uses a lot in his work, and it is often directed to those in power.
He’s been at the root end of power, as his father was before him. So that’s an important symbol for him, and I guess in the context of the story I am now working on, death is the dominant power, and the hero is coming back to life and raising his finger to death.’

Like the previous full moon releases, Road to Joy will come with differing mix approaches from Mark ‘Spike’ Stent (Bright-Side Mix), released on 4 June. Tchad Blake’s (Dark-Side Mix) and Hans-Martin Buff’s Atmos mix (In-Side Mix) were released later in the month.

Sky Blue’ featuring the Blind Boys of Alabama. Stream/download the concert here: http://smarturl.it/growinguplive Filmed in high definition, Growing Up Live was originally released on DVD in 2003 but never on Blu-ray or digitally. The DVD is now available again and the concert is also available on Blu-ray and digital download for the first time. The Still Growing Up concert film, originally released in 2005, was filmed in standard definition only and is being re-issued on DVD.

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