Peter Gabriel: listen to "What Lies Ahead", the third single from the upcoming album "oi"

After "Been Undone", released with January's Wolf Moon, and "Put The Bucket Down", put out for the Snow Moon, the new track has also followed the lunar calendar, this time arriving with the Worm Moon. The project calls for a new track to be released with every full moon, leading up to the album's full unveiling at year's end.

Gabriel explains that the track had already appeared in embryonic form during the "Back To Front Tour", where it was performed without lyrics, as was also the case with "Playing For Time": a composition still in progress. Its origins trace back to a melody his son Isaac was working on. "It struck me immediately," he recalls, "and I thought it could become the basis for something more structured."

During that tour, Scandinavian musicians Jennie Abrahamson and Linnea Olsson were also involved, the latter on cello. Gabriel had particularly admired a cello line by Olsson, which later made its way into the final recording. In 2022, John Metcalfe added further orchestral arrangements.

The track also brings back the Swedish male choir Orphei Drängar, previously featured on "This Is Home" from "i/o". Gabriel highlights the distinctive atmosphere the choir manages to create: intense, emotional, almost suspended in time. The idea of opening the track with this choral texture came from Brian Eno. Gabriel reaffirms his interest in music with a spiritual, inspirational character: while not describing himself as religious, he recognizes in these sounds the ability to carry the listener into another, more contemplative dimension.

Listen to "What Lies Ahead" below.

"What Lies Ahead" tackles the theme of invention and the figure of the inventor. Gabriel's father was an electronic engineer and inventor, and the musician recalls the difficulties involved in turning an idea into a concrete product: the endless revisions, the search for funding, the reckoning with the market. An experience that has fed his reflections on creative processes and the parallels between technical invention and artistic creation.

This month's artwork is by feminist artist Judy Chicago: it's "Birth Tear / Tear" (1982). The piece, which depicts the pain of childbirth, is read by Gabriel as a metaphor for the birth of an idea — a less traumatic process, but one still marked by tension and transformation. The work was created as part of a wide-ranging project on the theme of birth that, between 1980 and 1985, involved more than 150 collaborators under the artist's direction; this particular embroidery was executed by Jane Thompson in Houston, Texas.

Gabriel quotes a line from Chicago — "truth can be found in the ignored, the forgotten, and the left out" — pairing it with a reflection by Gaetano Pesce, who argued that "la bellezza del futuro risiederà nell'imperfezione" [the beauty of the future will lie in imperfection]. In a landscape dominated by automation and artificial intelligence, the musician champions the value of critical thinking and of spaces devoted to experimentation, such as the arts and universities, voicing concern over trends that are narrowing their autonomy.

By the end of the month, timed to coincide with the new moon, the "Dark-Side Mix" of "Put The Bucket Down", produced by Tchad Blake, will also be released.

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