![]() When Gabriel rummaged through his archives for the 2012 So box set, he discovered a demo version of this feverish pop track. "It becomes a sort of heightened experience, and so I was just trying to picture it." "I was just thinking about a depressed state but where you have suddenly heightened consciousness of sound, a bit like when you are about to throw up when suddenly smell goes into 3D, if you know what I mean," Gabriel wrote of the track. Over glacial piano chords, digital tablas and sighing brass, he transforms the mundane – squeezed sponges, oil "spitting" into sauce pans, knives scraping across "burnt brown toast" – into the cosmic. It was an ideal marriage of artist and instrument: No other rocker has better utilized the musical potential of abstract sound. "My Head Sounds Like That," the slow-building centerpiece of Up's second side, finds Gabriel meditating on the raw emotional power of noise. ![]() ![]() While designing the sonic palette for Security, Gabriel famously trekked to the junkyard with recording equipment – smashing TVs, breathing into pipes and feeding all the noises into his brand-new Fairlight CMI sampler. " a lot of fans will never like really, but I want to play that," he told Rolling Stoneahead of the trek. "The Family and the Fishing Net" is a litmus test for hardcore fans, but Gabriel has always adored the track, even plugging it into the set list for his recent Back to Front Tour. Then, finally, it detonates: "Another in the mesh!" Gabriel yelps. The track simmers in one extended build, without a true chorus, anchored by Tony Levin's sparse Chapman Stick. The unseen complexities of marriage – "the ritual of the wedding, the ring and the finger," as Gabriel said onstage on the Plays Live LP – anchor this seven-minute behemoth. But we never observe and recognize that." But beneath the water are the tentacles of two larger, dominant organisms which are the families making connection through those two particular tentacles. "What you see above the water is two people getting married. "We think we're islands, but we're all connected in a landmass," Gabriel told Mojo in 2010, reflecting on the volatile "The Family and the Fishing Net" from 1982's Security (the alias of yet another self-titled album). From obscure soundtrack tunes (“Party Man”) to anthemic B sides (“Don’t Break This Rhythm”), these are 20 great Peter Gabriel songs only hardcore fans know. Gabriel recently launched the Rock Paper Scissors tour – a collaborative, co-headlining jaunt with Sting – and released a dynamic Muhammad Ali-inspired single, “I’m Amazing.” It’s an ideal time to explore the lesser-known corners of his sprawling discography. It’s been 14 years since Gabriel’s last batch of new material, Up, but he’s remained active since – releasing two orchestral albums (2010’s covers-only Scratch My Back and the following year’s New Blood, full of revamped originals) and touring the world multiple times, most recently with the classic So lineup on his Back to Front trek. ![]() Art-rock innovator, soul-pop craftsman, “world music” ambassador: Peter Gabriel has evolved substantially with each LP, often abandoning a comfortable style to stake out new creative ground. And whether he’s wielding his soulful “Sledgehammer” or channeling an evil “Intruder,” his music always aims for the grandiose – even his leftovers are crafted with imagination and verve.
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