Product Description
-------------------
A decade in the making 'Up' is Peter Gabriel's 12th solo album
but his first 'song based' effort since 1992's 'Us'. Featuring
numerous guest appearances including Peter Green, Black Dyke
Mills Band, Youssou N'Dour and the late Nusrat ehAli Khan.
'Up' was reportedly pared down from a staggering 150 recorded
songs. Features the single 'The Barry Williams Show'.
.co.uk
------
That Up exists at all is faintly miraculous. Over the past seven
years, with guests including Youssou N'Dour (
/exec/obidos/artist-search/Youssou/${0} ), Peter Green (
/exec/obidos/artist-search/Peter%20Green/${0} ), Blind Boys of
Alabama ( /exec/obidos/artist-search/Blind%20Boys%20Alabama/${0}
) and Nusrat eh Ali Khan (
/exec/obidos/artist-search/Nusrat/${0} ), Peter Gabriel has held
sessions in Senegal, Atlanta, Singapore, the French
Alps and on a boat on the , as well as spending lengthy sojourns
in his own Real World studios.
Having written and prepared over 150 songs, it's amazing that
Gabriel's managed to cut this huge body of work down to just 11
tracks. It's still more amazing that these tracks should be so
consistent, and so contemporary. This quality springs from a
thoughtful (and rare) layering process, with Gabriel combining
his usual tribal rhythms with complex backing vocals, myriad
samples, rock guitars, deep piano and--crucially--electronic
sound effects. Indeed, the opening "Darkness" begins like the
Prodigy ( /exec/obidos/artist-search/Prodigy/${0} ) before
slipping into a quiet discussion of vulnerability and fear.
Elsewhere, there is the funky gospel-rock of "Burn You Up, Burn
You Down", the dreamy, Peter Hammill (
/exec/obidos/artist-search/Peter%20Hammill/${0} )-like fragility
of "The Drop" and the vocal pyrotechnics and orchestral heights
of "Signal to Noise". Throughout, Gabriel uses water metaphors,
from droplets to oceans, to examine human troubles and put
forward his positivist message. It's all brilliantly
done--sophisticated and soulful both. The man's a marvel, and
this is a big, big hit. --Dominic Wills
P.when('A').execute(function(A) {
A.on('a:expander:toggle_description:toggle:collapse',
function(data) {
window.scroll(0, data.expander.$expander[0].offsetTop-100);
});
});
Review
------
There's a scene in Grosse Point Blank where John Cusack as
Martin Blank meets an old school friend in his home town
following a lengthy period of disappearance (spent working as an
assassin) and all his buddy can say is, ''Ten years! TEN YEARS
MAN!?! Where have you been?'' Even the most patient of Gabriel's
followers will be muttering something similar, especially as what
is contained on the long-awaited follow-up to Us is, on first
spec, pretty much a direct continuation of what he was doing a
decade ago. Or is it?
Firstly any sonic similarity to previous work is easily explained
by the fact that many of the songs on offer here were actually
started during the sessions for Us. In the intervening period
Gabriel has produced music for the Millenium Dome (OVO) and film
The Rabit-Proof Fence, written stuff with apes (no Monkees or
Gorillaz jokes, please), kept his Real World label going, worked
with Greenpeace, WOMAD and the Witness programme for human rights
and married and become a her again, so get off his case -he's
no idle wheel-spinner. Likewise this album is no coasting
exercise. Like every great work it takes a little living with to
tease out the depth and intricacies that lie at its heart but
eventually reveals itself as both mature and full of wonders.
Initial listens will leave one with a sense of aching sadness yet
(PG says), like its title, this is an album of positive
life-affirmation. By this he refers to the central themes of
death and renewal. No shirking the big issues then, eh? The title
track deals with the process of grieving, as (unsurprisingly)
does ''I Grieve'', whereas ''Growing Up'' is a description of
just that a soul's journey on this mortal coil. ''Don't Leave''
is a description of someone critically wounded, yet focuses on
the pull of loved ones, urging the victim back to the land of the
living.
If this all sounds ponderously deep, it's not. Gabriel's correct
that what's on offer here is an ability to face up to and deal
with our mortality and frailty without seeing it as a bleak
Beckettian journey into a void. ''More Than This actually'' goes
as far as to say, again and again, that there is something beyond
mere existence and ''Darkness', while discordant and brooding on
the nature of fear, has a chorus of ''I cry until I laugh'' seems
to hint at therapy that heals. There is humour here too, albeit
of a scathingly black kind on the Jerry Springer-baiting
funkathon, ''The Barry Williams Show''.
Musically the textures are unbelievably rich with subtle beats
and washes of sound provided by the usual team of David Rhodes
(guitars) and Richard Chappell (programming), mixed to
perfection; all underpinned by Tony Levin's fabulous bass and
aided by luminaries as diverse as Daniel Lanois, Danny Thompson,
The Blind Boys Of Alabama, Nusrat eh Ali Khan and the Black
Dyke brass band. True, the structures havent moved far away from
So and Us but as Mike Love once said to Brian Wilson, "why f**k
with the formula?" Gabriel remains a songsmith who speaks from
the heart and never fails to move. Ten years suddenly seems like
minutes and all is forgiven... --Chris Jones
Find more music at the BBC
( http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/syn//albumreviews/-/music/ ) This link
will take you off in a new window
See more ( javascript:void(0) )
