PETER GABRIEL "o\i" the new album. Listen to the first single “Been Undone”

Peter Gabriel reactivates his personal lunar calendar and announces “oi”, his new recording project which arrives just over a year after “I” (2023), a record that marked the return to unpublished writing after over two decades.

Twelve tracks, title-theme theme in perfect continuity with the tradition inaugurated by So in 1986, and a declared complementary nature compared to the previous work.

If i/o reflected on the relationship between the human being and nature, oi reverses the perspective: «the inside has a new way out, the outside has a new way in», Gabriel writes, defining these songs as his “lumpy bits”, irregular fragments of thought and sensitivity. A project that openly looks to the future and its imminent fractures – artificial intelligence, quantum computing, brain-computer interfaces – entrusting art with the task of anticipating and reflecting, rather than explaining.

As already happened with i/o, oi will also be published following the ritual of full moon releases: for every full moon a song, accompanied by two versions – the Dark-Side Mix by Tchad Blake and the Bright-Side Mix by Mark 'Spike' Stent – and by a selected visual work.

The visual work associated with the single is Ciclotrama 156 (Palindrome) by the Brazilian artist Janaina Mello Landini (2019), a web of strings that unwinds and multiplies like an organic structure: «it looks like a brain, or tree trunks, full of entry points», observes Gabriel, reinforcing the dialogue between sound, form and perception.

THE FIRST SINGLE

Opening the cycle, coinciding with Wolf Moon, is “Been Undone”, proposed for now in its darkest incarnation.

The song, almost eight minutes long, is the most recent episode developed by Gabriel together with his historic creative core – Tony Levin, David Rhodes and Manu Katché – in Real World Studios. It is born from the expansion of a harmonic progression and riffs dating back to a demo from thirty years ago, significantly entitled Sit. The result is an oblique and relaxed groove, crossed by references to mitochondria and the Mandelbrot set, where science becomes poetic metaphor. Gabriel is on keyboards, while Richard Evans adds an unexpected touch of mandolin.

At the moment oi does not yet have an official release date. The Bright-Side Mix of “Been Undone” will arrive in the next few weeks, followed by a new song on the second full moon of the year, February 1st. Once again, Gabriel chooses cosmic time instead of industrial time, confirming that, for him, the publication of music remains a ritual act rather than a promotional one.