The pop doyen goes all out thematically: this time, every song gets two versions in the mix.
The bright (vulgo: sunny) and the dark side of life are already suspect in the top group in pop’s eternal topic ranking. Just the fact that an artist gives each of their new songs a bright and a dark version is worth more than just a report. And the artist’s name is also Peter Gabriel. He chose this experimental arrangement and put the twelve songs in the hands of Mark “Spike” Stent” (bright) and Tchad Blake (dark), who tease out nuances in an attempt to give the mood images strong colors.
It doesn’t take 50 seconds in the opening track “Panopticom” to attribute this album to the ex-Genesis singer, that’s the voice that mastered “Solsbury Hill” in 1977, it’s just mixed a little deeper into the room here. The panopticon, a building concept that established itself as an organizing principle for surveillance societies, is turned on its head in Gabriel’s new edition. The former subjects monitor those in power, Brian Eno lets the synths move through the room like a wind of change. And otherwise?
There are melancholic-symphonic pop songs like “Playing For Time”, “Love Can Heal” and the title song “i/o”, sparked electro singing games (“The Court”) and grand pop triumphs, recorded with the Soweto Gospel Choir and Orchestra and numerous guest musicians. Tolerance, forgiveness, death, grief and terrorism – Gabriel didn’t exactly keep the agenda small, but the implementation in the song and sound doesn’t always do justice to the lyrical demands. I/O has definitely become an album that, with its comprehensive, timeless approach, makes for a veritable study object, and also brings the realization that bright and dark are sometimes not that far apart, at least musically.