ARTIST: Peter Gabriel

CREATOR: Tristan Zand

SONG: Road to Joy (Dark-Side Mix) FROM i/o

Video info

The song I had the honour of working with simply made me feel good: pure, positive musical energy with a groove that reaches the heart through the ears. It felt essential not to alter that core musical experience, so I aimed to create a subtle visual layer, one that echoes the strong rhythm section while leaving space for the viewer to explore the melodies and lyrics.

In a time when generative AI often blurs the line between real and synthetic, I felt it was important to leave visible traces of the various tools and techniques I used. I also wove in visual references to Peter’s past work, those familiar codes that still linger in our shared visual memory.

Song info:

Road to Joy is a track taken from Peter Gabriel's album i/o, released on 1 December 2023. This is the Dark-Side Mix, by Tchad Blake.

Words and music by Peter Gabriel. Produced by Peter Gabriel and Brian Eno

Published by Real World Music Ltd. / Sony Music Publishing.

‘I'm working on a project which is partly a story focused around the brain and how we perceive things and this song connects to that. It deals with near-death experience and locked-in syndrome situations where people are unable to communicate or to move. It's an amazingly frustrating condition. There have been some great books and films about this subject, but at this point in our story the people looking after our hero manage to find a way to wake him up. So, it’s a lyric about coming back into your senses, back to life, back into the world.’ - pg

ARTIST: Peter Gabriel

CREATOR: Dominic DeJoseph

SONG: Playing for Time (Dark-Side Mix) FROM i/o

Video info:

Understanding the creative dilemma posed by the integration of Artificial Intelligence in the arts, I decided to take a ride down that slippery slope to explore its potential for the creation of novel and experimental works, akin to the Surrealists’ practice of automatic writing, which enabled them to create dreamlike imagery seemingly out of thin air.

Song info:

Playing for Time is a track taken from Peter Gabriel's album i/o, released on 1 December 2023. This is the Dark-Side Mix, by Tchad Blake.

Words and music by Peter Gabriel. Produced by Peter Gabriel.

Published by Real World Music Ltd. / Sony Music Publishing.

Some songs arrive very quickly, Playing for Time was not one of those. I had been working on it, on and off, for several years and have sometimes performed it live, without lyrics.

It's about time, mortality and memories and the idea that each of us has a planet full of memories which get stashed inside the brain. Just like the hit songs of their youth which trigger extraordinary responses in dementia patients, I am fascinated by the mechanisms, smells and sounds which allow memories to reopen.

-pg

ARTIST: Peter Gabriel

CREATOR: Ezra Soiferman

SONG: This Is Home (Bright-Side Mix) FROM i/o

Video info:

To mesh with the theme of home, I sifted through thousands of images in my photo collection, finding my favourite shots of animals and insects in their homes or natural habitats.
I selected birds, bees and butterflies as well as tons of other critters: some fuzzy, some feathery, some sleek; a bunch of up-close macro shots of stunning flowers too.
I was happy with how it was all clicking into place so smoothly, but felt it was missing something: another visual layer to connect what we are seeing to the song.
 “What can I add to this to take it to the next level?,” I wondered. After a minute of head-scratching my mind blurted out: "The concert photos!” How did this not dawn on me sooner?
I had been so taken by the song and so busy finding just the right nature shots to go with it, that I had overlooked the fact that a month earlier I'd actually shot photos of Gabriel in concert at Montreal’s Bell Centre.
Fuelled by this brainwave, I began interspersing photos of him and his incredible band in THEIR natural habitat… up on stage. Long story short, it all just worked.
My hope is that this fan video brings a deeper appreciation for the seemingly infinite (but frequently threatened) species and habitats all around us. My goal is to shine a grateful spotlight on all these creatures, showing their interactions with each other and the natural world around them.
May the colour, warmth and beauty they offer provide some much-needed hope in today’s topsy-turvy world. After all, “This is home” and - as far as I know - it’s the only one we and the animals have.
I’m thrilled to share all this with you today. Thanks for reading, thanks for watching and please feel free to share it with others if you dig it!
The video “This Is Home” was featured in the February 2024 issue of BBC Wildlife Magazine.

Song info:

This Is Home is a track taken from Peter Gabriel's album i/o, released on 1 December 2023. This is the Bright-Side Mix, by Mark 'Spike' Stent.

Words and music by Peter Gabriel. Produced by Peter Gabriel and Richard Russell.

Published by Real World Music Ltd. / Sony Music Publishing.

“This Is Home is a love song. It began with inspiration from some of the great Tamla Motown rhythm sections so we’re trying to recreate that in a modern way, complete with the tambourine and handclaps. The groove I like a lot, Tony Levin does a great bass part there.

I did an unusual thing for me in that I tried doing this low voice / high voice thing, so you get this almost conversational voice at the beginning and the second part is a higher, more emotional voice. I thought that would be both intimate and emotive to put the two side by side.”

-pg