Peter Gabriel has shared a new song, "Love Can Heal." It is the latest single from Gabriel's forthcoming new album, i/o, which will be his first album of original songs in over 20 years. The album's exact release date has yet to be announced. Check it out below.
Gabriel had this to say about the song in a statement: "'Love Can Heal' was written around 2016 and I did start playing it midway through the tour and dedicated it to Jo Cox, who was the British MP brutally murdered by an extremist and someone that I had met at a leadership conference. I think the song fits right in to the themes of the album in the sense that i/o is about feeling and being connected to everything and in a way, the next evolution of being connected to things is a feeling of love for everything."
For each single from the album, Gabriel is working with a different artist to do the cover artwork. Antony Micallef and his work "a small painting of what I think love looks like" forms the single cover artwork for "Love Can Heal."
Gabriel says: "Antony Micallef is a stunning painter. I'd seen some of his portraits and they are with thick layers of paint, so there were references to Auerbach and Bacon for me, just very physical, very powerful and I just fell in love. Those paintings, in some ways, are more brutal, but this one is so tender and I think Antony manages to capture a lot of that intimate tenderness around love that is very hard to put into pictures. I was delighted when he was happy to be part of this."
Micallef also had this to add: "I was listening to a few of the songs and it's interesting because it's like putting on clothes and going 'oh, this suits me' or 'that doesn't suit me.' With 'Love Can Heal' I could see my images coming up when I was hearing it so you begin to home-in and that's how it starts. I love artists who take risks and Peter's always chopped and changed and I like to do that too with my work and you know it doesn't just rest on this one thing."
Aardman Animation (Wallace and Gromit, Shaun the Sheep) worked with Micallef on the song's video. Of making the video, Micallef adds: "Working with Aardman was amazing. I love processes, especially in other mediums and so I found the mechanics of how this stuff comes together really interesting."
Gabriel and Aardman previously collaborated on his iconic "Sledgehammer" video.
"Obviously I worked quite a lot with Aardman Animation in the past," says Gabriel, "and Antony loved their work, so we talked to them, not sure if this was something that they might want to do or not, and they did a beautiful job. Very simple, but very strong and I'm very pleased with it."
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. Gabriel's last full tour was 2014's Back to Front Tour, which celebrated his classic 1986 album So.
The new tour will feature Gabriel's regular band-mates Tony Levin, David Rhodes, and Manu Katche and will include songs from i/o, as well as ones across his back catalogue.
