youtu.be
Music is a cathartic process for a lot of us... Peter Gabriel talks Face the Wall on the full moon.
The corn or harvest full moon sees the release of the tenth song from Peter Gabriel’s new album o\i. This month the song is Face the Wall.
Face the Wall is written and produced by Peter Gabriel and the first mix to be released is the Dark-Side Mix by Tchad Blake. The Bright-Side Mix of Face the Wall will be released on the next new moon.
Listen here: https://lnk.to/PGS44
“After last month, where we were ‘looking for the happy’, we can just follow that line all the way through and come to Face the Wall, which is looking directly in the face of death. A nice, cheerful subject.
“The lyric is partly about getting older, facing illness, and it's looking death in the face, which I think we don't do enough of. I know I've talked about this before, but cultures which seem to include death as a normal part of life seem more comfortable with it and live life to the full. That was the starting point.
“Music is a cathartic process for a lot of us and when I'm singing at the end, ‘I see you coming through’ that is a cathartic moment. I think that is an important line; conditions are getting worse and more intense as the song progresses, but with that lyric it suggests there is a reason to be hopeful.
“You never quite know when you’re in the studio whether the song is going to be a vehicle that can carry people, or not. I know this is going to speak to some people.”
Face the Wall features noteworthy contributions from a number of regular Gabriel collaborators; Tom Cawley on piano, “There's that fluidity in the way he thinks about his playing and his improvising that I enjoy a lot. I don't have anything like his chops. I think of myself as a songwriter articulating ideas and he's a real virtuoso player.” Tony Levin on bass “he's very good, very sensitive, and tends to underplay, which really suits this song” and the New Blood Orchestra, arranged by John Metcalfe, “there's only a small section in this song making use of the orchestra but it's important. John Metcalfe is such a brilliant writer, arranger, and I love his own work as a composer. Anyone who enjoys John’s work as an arranger should check out his album ‘Tree’ which I was delighted we could put out on Real World.”
The cover art for Face the Wall is called ‘The Nest. Amos Rex’ by Tadashi Kawamata. Photographed by Mika Huisman.
“When I saw The Nest at Amos Rex, I fell in love with it. To me, the wall is there, big, solid, you know, a bit like death. These messy human chairs are falling over the wall and, somehow, they spill over the top. It's funny, but it's also hopeful and against unbelievable odds.
“I wasn't aware of Tadashi Kawamata's work before seeing this image, but this was the thing that got me excited. I thought it was perfect for this song and got me looking at a lot of his other work.
“I guess I'm attracted to stuff that is going against the rules or doing what it does in an unconventional way. We are used to seeing art in a museum or on walls, and here it is tumbling over the walls. That feels like a more interesting, adventurous, and unlikely context. Tadashi was taking a lot of the elements, the chairs in particular, from local reclamation sites, so they, if you like, belong to that community, that area. [The Lasipalatsi building in the heart of Helsinki]. The site-specific nature of the work is really something that he's having fun playing with.
“An artist to explore for those of you that love this image like I do.”
