photo: Nadav Kander

With a nod to this evening’s full moon Peter Gabriel has released a new song from his forthcoming album i/o. This initial version version of “So Much” is the Dark-Side Mix, by Tchad Blake. Later this month Gabriel will release additional versions of the song: Mark ‘Spike’ Stent’s Bright-Side Mix) and then Hans-Martin Buff’s Atmos mix (In-Side Mix). Gabriel notes, “One of the privileges of working with these extraordinary mixers is that they bring personality, sound textures, pictures, environments out of the elements that you throw at them that have strong individual characters. You can really hear what these very smart people are doing.”

As for the “So Much” itself, Gabriel says, “I was trying purposefully not to be clever with this. I wanted to get a very simple chorus but one which still had some substance to the harmony and melody. Something that was easy to digest but still had a bit of character to it. ‘So Much’ is about mortality, getting old, all the bright, cheerful subjects, but I think when you get to my sort of age, you either run away from mortality or you jump into it and try and live life to the full and that always seems to make a lot more sense to me. The countries that seem most alive are those that have death as part of their culture.”

Gabriel will open a North American tour on September 8 in Quebec City.