PETER GABRIEL - Big Blue Ball

Luckily, Peter Gabriel's new album isn't really new, and isn't really by Peter Gabriel. "Big Blue Ball" is the fruit of three years of jams, sessions and encounters that took place in the early Nineties under the English composer's supervision. Passing through the Real World studios, a sampler of artists signed to Gabriel's label and a fair number of leading names from the world music scene and beyond.

The album stayed in the drawer until now, held up by the long process of reorganizing and producing it. The result of fifteen years of reworking is a contrived, at times outright kitsch, record, which follows "Ovo" and "The Imagined Village" onto the list of all-star disappointments recently released by Real World.

There's no point dwelling on the whys and hows: I'll refer you to the review of "The Imagined Village", an album that suffered from the same production-induced suffocation built on cheap beats and low-grade new age. Better instead to try, with a bit of effort, to see the glass as half full. Many tracks bet everything on sound, neglecting the songwriting side. Among the rest, a few things are worth salvaging.

Take "Habibe" (Natacha Atlas, Hossam Ramzy, Neil Sparke), a smooth arabesque of minor-key harmonic haze, strings and chill-out pulses. "Exit Through You" (Joseph Arthur, Peter Gabriel, Karl Wallinger) is a pleasant funky nursery-rhyme with the usual atmospheric/emphatic breakdown in the style of "Us"/"Up" (see "More Than This"). Then there's Sinéad O'Connor singing "Everything Comes From You", a nursery-rhyme-like count that evolves into a morbid brooding over love, fading out on a haunting vocal call-and-response.

And that's about it. Billy Cobham, Jah Wobble and Vernon Reid can do little to rescue the tracks they're involved in.

Three standout tracks, eleven in total. There's no putting a positive spin on it: if "Big Blue Ball" had stayed in the drawer until now, it could just as well have stayed there for good.

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30/04/2026