• News

• All

Oct 30, 2023 By Mark Redfern Photography by Nadav Kander

Peter Gabriel is releasing a new album, i/o, on December 1 via Real World. Now he has shared yet another song from it, “And Still.” Listen below.

This album will be his first of original songs in over 20 years. Gabriel has already shared most of its songs.

Gabriel had this to say about “And Still” in a press release: “I wrote a song for my dad a number of years back, which I was actually able to play him, which was ‘Father, Son’. When my mum died, I wanted to do something for her, but it’s taken a while before I felt comfortable and distant enough to be able to write something.

“I was trying also to write a little bit in the style of the music that my parents responded to, so I think there is some music from the 40s probably that had an influence on the song. In the middle I wanted to write my mum a beautiful melody. She loved classical music, so we have a beautiful cello playing there. It took a while to get that right, it can’t be too emotional or too underplayed, but I think we got there in the end.”

For each single from the album, Gabriel is working with a different artist to do the cover artwork. Megan Rooney and one of her large-scale paintings “And Still (Time)” forms the single cover artwork for “And Still.”

Gabriel says: “The art this month is from one of my favorites, an artist called Megan Rooney.

“I first came across her when she was doing these very fast faces. She’d do one a day and they had so much character, I fell in love with those. Megan was the first person that was approached about this project and she showed me some of the abstract work that she’d been doing, which I thought was beautiful.

“There was one piece that I think we both thought felt right for the song, for the mood. Then, in fact, Megan said, ‘I really want to create something new for this,’ and she started it, but just like with my creative process she got to a point where she didn’t think she had quite nailed it. I know from my own work that sometimes I have to leave it and come back to it to find the right path.

“In the end Megan suggested ‘maybe we should use this existing one, instead,’ which is what we have done. I’m still hoping that we’ll get to the end with the other one, but this is a beautiful piece.”

Megan Rooney adds: “First only working from the memory of Peter’s song so that I could find my way into the world he had created. And slowly, as I started to listen to sections of the song, a feeling of longing grasped hold of me and I was transported back to my mother’s garden. I typically paint in rapid, concentrated bursts and Peter’s song has a slow, undulating pace to it. The song really cradles you in its arms as much as it lets you soar, so I had to be patient to find a way to respond.”

Previously Gabriel shared the album’s first single, “Panopticom,” which featured Brian Eno and was one of our Songs of the Week. That was followed by its second single, “The Court.” Then the album’s third single was “Playing For Time.” The fourth single was the album’s title track, “i/o.” The album’s fifth single was “Four Kinds of Horses,” which also made our Songs of the Week list. “Road to Joy” was the album’s sixth single and it also made our Songs of the Week list. Then he shared “So Much,” “Olive Tree,” “Love Can Heal,” and “This Is Home” (which was one of our Songs of the Week).

Gabriel’s last full-length album of original materials was 2002’s Up, although in 2010 he released the Scratch My Back covers album and in 2011 he released New Blood, which featured orchestral re-recordings of songs from across Gabriel’s career.

Also read our previous interview between Gabriel and Arcade Fire’s Richard Reed Parry.

Support Under the Radar on Patreon.