That Voice Again: Peter Gabriel - Album by Album

'Across the River' has in common with the songs from So and Passion, a much shorter gestation from writing to performing and recording (about six months) than did the songs on IV/Security. It took took almost two years to write, program, and perform.

'Across the River' also came after Security was finished (though not released), so perhaps taking an improvisational and collaborative approach to the music with stellar musicians on real instruments captured spirits and atmospheres with which the song abounds.

 

Nobody knows?

 

I've never owned any of the German language versions. However, the remixed version of 'Biko' in English released as the 12" single, discussed above, which emerged from the German-language sessions, is a full minute longer than the original version on the album.

And this from the definitive Peter Gabriel rarieties thread:

 

A World of Music Arts and Dance

The period between the third and fourth solo album saw the blossoming of Gabriel's interest in what is now called World Music, and WOMAD, the first festival devoted to "the traditional and contemporary arts of non-western cultures, as practiced in this country and throughout the world," occurred under his auspices at this time.

"I had long been interested in non-Western music and was convinced there were others who could share this excitement. In 1980, I got together with people from what was then the Bristol Recorder, an independent record magazine, and we began planning a three day event with musicians and dancers from all over the country. It took place in Shepton Mallet, [Somerset, England on July 16-18,] 1982.

"There were workshops, a school children's parade, film shows, theatre and music and dance. It was a critical and artistic success, but a financial disaster."*

Artists performing at the first WOMAD festival included: Peter Gabriel, Peter Hammill, Don Cherry, The Beat, The Drummers of Burundi, Imrat Khan, Prince Nico M' barga, Ekome, Simple Minds, and Echo and the Bunnymen.

"'When we arrived at Womad in 1982,' says Echo and the Bunnymen frontman and co-founder, Ian McCulloch, 'I thought we'd landed on Jupiter or somewhere. I thought, we're a rock band and there's all this beautiful, exotic stuff going on. Why do they want us?'"** Because bands like his and those above and others who appeared on the 1982 double LP for WOMAD, Music and Rhythm, were open to the influences of African and other non-western musical traditions, instruments, and players.

The first WOMAD festival took 18 months to plan and attracted 15,000 people. In the financial wake, though, the solvency of many who had worked on it was in jeopardy. Gabriel himself was not legally liable but took responsibility to help the organization extricate itself from bankruptcy, even while his family endured anonymous death threats from those owed money. Gail Colson, at the time still managing Gabriel and Genesis, proposed the idea of a reunion concert to raise a lot of money fast, and that event which took place October 2, 1982, did just that. "It was very generous of Genesis to bail WOMAD out that way," Gabriel said afterwards. WOMAD has since flourished with over 160 festivals in twenty-seven countries.

"Pure enthusiasm for music from around the world led us to the idea of WOMAD in 1980 and thus to the first WOMAD festival in 1982," Gabriel says. "The festivals have always been wonderful and unique occasions and have succeeded in introducing an international audience to many talented artists.

"Equally important, the festivals have also allowed many different audiences to gain an insight into cultures other than their own through the enjoyment of music. Music is a universal language, it draws people together and proves, as well as anything, the stupidity of racism."***

Gabriel's set at the first WOMAD festival:
July 16, 1982
San Jacinto
The Family And The Fishing Net
I Have The Touch
Lay Your Hands On Me
Shock The Monkey
I Go Swimming
The Rhythm Of The Heat
Band Introductions
Shosholoza
Kiss Of Life
Biko

July 18, 1982
Band Introductions
A Ritual Mask (w/ Peter Hammill)
Dog 1 Dog 2 Dog 3
Indian Melody (w/ Shankar)
Across The River #1
Across The River #2 (Encore)

*Quoted in Armando Gallo, Peter Gabriel (London, 1986), n.p.
**Quoted in Deborah Schofield, "20 Years on, it's still a WOMAD world," Monday July 29, 2002, guardian.co.uk
***Quoted at Womad.Org "About Us"

 

I didn't want to give Yesstiles info based on my (ever failing) memory, but as I recall, the German mix of "Biko" does run significantly longer on the German version, but I think it's mostly the African singing that opens and closes the song. I think this sticks in my brain mostly because that song was always too long for me to begin with, so that made it a real chore to listen to on the German album.

Can't recall anything else that would be so much longer. The mixes are significantly different in many cases though ("And Through the Wire" is painfully bare in some of its verses).

 

"The rhythm has my soul"


Peter Gabriel / Security
September 10, 1982
Charisma PG 4
Geffen GHS 2011
UK CHART POSITION #6 . . . US CHART POSITION #28 . . .

1. The Rhythm of the Heat 5:15
2. San Jacinto 6:21
3. I Have the Touch 4:30
4. The Family and the Fishing Net 7:00
5. Shock the Monkey 5:23
6. Lay Your Hands on Me 6:03
7. Wallflower 6:30
8. Kiss of Life 4:17

Produced by: DAVID LORD and PETER GABRIEL.
Electronic production and processing: FAST and GABRIEL
Engineered by: DAVID LORD, assisted by NEIL PERRY.
Recorded: at home (the first two weeks with MOBILE ONE) and mixed down the road at CRESCENT STUDIOS, Bath.
Digital editing: ADVISION STUDIOS with thanks to MIKE KING.
Digital Mixing facilities: (Sony PCM 1610 System) supplied by DIGITAL AUDIO SYSTEMS
Fairlight CMI recording, programming and development: STEPHEN PAINE of Syco Systems, GABRIEL, LORD and FAST

Recorded between spring 1981 and summer 1982.
Originally mastered by Ian Cooper at The Townhouse, London.
Remastered (2002) by Tony Cousins at Metropolis.

4/5 This album overlaps with Gabriel's incorporation of non-western rhythms, instruments, composition methods, and players, and extensive electronic and digital processing of sounds, into his approach to writing, performing, producing, and recording music. The album also took the longest to produce, being recorded and produced mostly at home and at nearby Crescent Studios in Bath. It suffers from over production and a closed-in sound, the very best tracks being those that center around live performances. By the time the album was released Gabriel was already turning to an approach based on collaboration, improvisation, and real-time performance, getting the results on tape "before the craft settles in." The songs coming out of this approach would be among the best in his career, but first he had one more album centered on atmospheres and production.


"The fourth album was done at Ashcombe House and I was working with David Lord who I'd known a bit, in Bath he had a studio there [Crescent Studios], but he'd come really more from a classical background. It was the first time really that I had a studio situation but of my own and when you did something really good the cows would come and lick the windows."

"I'd been dreaming for some time of an instrument that could sample stuff from the real world and then turn it, make it available on a keyboard. Larry Fast told me that he thought he'd heard rumours of such an instrument. It was £10,000 which seemed an unearthly amount of money, got very excited with this thing, it's called the Fairlight, and spent a lot of time then collecting sounds going to factories to the university, getting interesting samples that were then used on that record and the ones after, it was really one of the key things that gave that record a different sound."

"Shock the Monkey is probably one of the better known tracks - most people saw that as a sort of animal right song, but it wasn't actually it was a song about jealousy."

"The artwork on album 4 was something that I'd been working on with a sculptor called Malcolm Pointer who's work I thought was really strong, he used to do these things out of very dark heads."

“I let the record company choose the new single – in this case, ‘Shock the Monkey’ is probably the right track. – and my attitude is to do the album I want and try to sell it as best I can, in that order. Singles are primarily advertising for the album. If I get a hit, I’m delighted, but it has nothing to do with what I’m trying to do.”*

“On the last two albums there has been a rhythm-based compositional method, partly because of the programmable drum box. I’ve been looking for more interesting rhythms than are found in most rock music. I’ve been listening to non-European music and old Tamla records, and inventing patterns, so I had about 40 or 50 rhythms before I started writing. This meant I would write differently, often giving more space to the music than I would without having rhythm first.

“It took time to find things I liked well enough to program them on the Fairlight. I took 40 or 50 rhythmic ideas; about 20 were put into vague track form, 12 were worked on with various overdubs, and eight were mixed. A very wasteful process, I suppose, but that way I can get what I want. Every track has a sound I’m proud of.

“There’s still a lot of stuff on the album played on conventional instruments, and I like to use the personality and performance of live musicians. With the analog synthesizers, though, the music took more of an electronic direction, which, except for a few examples like Wendy Carlos and Larry Fast, is less expressive than liver performance. But with the new range digital synthesizers, of which the Fairlight is only one, there will be an increasing number of real-time performance controls, so that they will become as expressive as any conventional instrument.”

*Quoted in Stephen Grant, “Peter Gabriel Steps into the Light,” Trouser Press, January 1983, 20-24.

 

personnel by track: IV/SECURITY

RHYTHM OF THE HEAT
drums: JERRY MAROTTA. Ghanian drums section: EKOME DANCE COMPANY. Surdo drums: GABRIEL, MAROTTA. Linn programming: GABRIEL. Bass: TONY LEVIN. CMI (inc Petswan, Piztwang Voc2, Saxy): GABRIEL. Moog: LARRY FAST. Prophet: FAST, GABRIEL. B vox: GABRIEL, DAVID RHODES, JOHN ELLIS

SAN JACINTO
drums: MAROTTA. Additional drums: GABRIEL. Linn programming: GABRIEL. Stick: LEVIN. guitars: RHODES. additional guitar: ELLIS. CMI (inc Marimba, glass, blown drainpipe, horn, Voc 1): GABRIEL. Moog brass: FAST. B vox: JILL GABRIEL, GABRIEL.

I HAVE THE TOUCH
drums: MAROTTA. Linn programming: GABRIEL. Stick: LEVIN. guitars: RHODES. CMI (inc Saxy, Jaw): GABRIEL. Prophet: GABRIEL, FAST. Moog: FAST. B vox: GABRIEL, RHODES, ELLIS.

THE FAMILY AND THE FISHING NET
drums: MAROTTA. Linn programming: GABRIEL. Stick: LEVIN. guitars: ELLIS, RHODES. treated saxophone: ROBERTO LANERI. CMI (inc scraped exhaust pipe, Saxy, Swanee): GABRIEL, STEPHEN PAINE. B vox: GABRIEL, PETER HAMMILL, RHODES. Traditional Ethiopian pipes: MORRIS PERT.

SHOCK THE MONKEY
drums: MAROTTA. Linn programming: GABRIEL. Stick: LEVIN. guitars: RHODES. CMI (inc Marimba, Clayt, Saxy, Trump): GABRIEL. Prophet: FAST, GABRIEL. B vox: GABRIEL, HAMMILL

LAY YOUR HANDS ON ME
drums and percussion: MAROTTA. Timbales: PERT. Linn programming: GABRIEL. Bass and Fretless: LEVIN. guitars: RHODES. CMI (inc scraped paving stone, ARR 1, Saxy, Glock): GABRIEL, DAVID LORD. Prophet: GABRIEL. B vox: GABRIEL, HAMMILL, RHODES.

WALLFLOWER
drums: MAROTTA. Bass: LEVIN. guitars: RHODES. piano: LORD, GABRIEL. CMI (inc Swanee, Exp 2): LORD, GABRIEL. Prophet: GABRIEL, FAST. B vox and vocal noises: GABRIEL.

KISS OF LIFE
drums: MAROTTA. percussion: PERT. Surdo drum: GABRIEL. Bass: LEVIN. guitars: RHODES. Moog brass and electronic production: FAST. CMI (inc glass): GABRIEL. piano: LORD. B vox: GABRIEL, RHODES, ELLIS.

 

There was a British arts program (or should I say programme), The South Bank Show, that did a remarkably in-depth documentary on the making of Security. You can see it on YouTube:

part one

part two

If you are a PG fan and have not yet seen this, you are in for a real treat!

 

My first time chiming into this thread... I'm a huge PG fan and saw many amazing shows starting with the tour for Scratch. I was in the Bottom Line, for one, and in Central Park and at the Palladium gigs as well.

As to "Security," it is easily my favorite PG album. I can remember being staggered by the drums and the way they were recorded. That album would put anyone's system to the test in terms of bass response, because there's so much of it there.

The end section of San Jacinto, with the lyric "we will walk on the land... etc.", is the spookiest piece of music I know of. That sound, the one that sounds like someone blowing across a tube, is so haunting. It always sounded to me like the sound you can get if you blow across the top of an open chain-link fence post. I've always wondered just what the heck he sampled to get that sound. To this day, it rarely fails to send shivers up my spine.

 

Security, aka Peter Gabriel 4 is quite a record. Stylistically, it takes the experimentation and world music influences of his third album to new heights. Although it isn't quite as powerful a listen as its predecessor, it remains an accessible and engaging listen, and it still sounds fresh today.

The album begins with "The Rhythm of the Heat;" a song whose percussion alone is dramatic. "I Have the Touch," "Shock the Monkey," and "Kiss of Life" are probably the most conventional (and catchy) songs. "San Jacinto" and "Wallflower" expand on topical themes, while "The Family and the Fishing Net" and "Lay Your Hands on Me" continue "Intruder's" trend of aural mayhem. I honestly didn't like "Shock the Monkey" the first time I heard it on the radio, but the song has grown on me since then.

I own this release in both its English- and German-language incarnations. The latter (titled Deutsches Album) features the following track listing:

1. Der Rhythmus der Hitze (The Rhythm of the Heat)
2. Das Fischernetz (The Family and the Fishing Net)
3. Kon Takt! (I Have the Touch)
4. San Jacinto (San Jacinto)
5. Schock den Affen (Shock the Monkey)
6. Handauflegen (Lay Your Hands on Me)
7. Nicht die Erde Hat Dich Verschluckt (Wallflower)
8. Mundzumundbeatmung (Kiss of Life)

Although it's an interesting listen, I have to say that the original English version of the record is superior. Gabriel sounds a bit hesitant singing in German, and often leaves empty spots in the music where he would repeat lyrics otherwise.

Regardless of the language, the front and back cover art to Security/4 remains one of the strangest things I've ever seen. The liner notes mention that the sleeve was "based on video images by Malcolm Poynter, Peter Gabriel, and David Gardner," which only thickens the plot...

 

As a PG fan, I gotta say that I find this album boring.
I have no idea why. Shock the monkey doesn't do it for me either.
I love the remix of I have the Touch which is on Shaking the Tree.
Kiss of Life is good also.
I know its highly acclaimed. What can I say?

 

Thanks!

Boy, Wikipedia is sure off the mark. They say that PG3 has no difference whatsoever between the English and German versions, except the overdubbed vocals.

 

Now THAT I can promise you is incorrect. Won't take long for you to hear the differences in the mixes. IMO, the US mix is far better - it's just nice to hear an alternate version of such a great LP.

 

I looked high and low but I could not find any substantive Gabriel quote on the video for 'Shock the Monkey' but that was surely one of the most significant music videos on MTV in the early days of the medium.

 

Point Blank there are a few differences 'tween PG 3 in German and English.They are minor instrumental differences but the differences in Start/I Don't Remmeber and Biko exist.As to why?Who knows if PG wanted different versions musically on the two language albums.

 

All I remember is finding the vocals irritating and then finding out later that producer David Lord, who produced these versions, also managed to get a side project going with Gabriel's wife at the same time.

 

I love the Massive Nusrat Musta Musta (is that the right title, pulling from memory here) and i LOVE this remix of Games A LOT!. Blows my mind and in a way I might prefer it right now, if I could only have one.

Hearing Across the River the first time on the Womad double album was quite an introduction to me to expand my listening horizon and genre's. The Holgar Czukay was another track on this collection that took my music seeking to a new level. A very influential album this was for me and really I only bought it for the Gabriel track at first. Loved the Vic Coppersmith thing as well. Womad and Real opened my ears to lots of cool world music and textures that I'd not knew before....

and I see you're all onto Security already, but I had to do a bit of catch up....

 

I believe it is.
I've come across some rather extensive quotes from PG about the Mozo story but since they are from the So/Passion period I will post them then.

In the meantime, listening to the current album, I can't help but think both 'I Have the Touch' and 'Lay Your Hands On Me' are being sung from the perspective of a character very like Mozo.

 

well I think he readied them after the english records and we know he never seems to finish anything, so my take is that he continued to make changes and if he had his way, he'd change all his records continually. i get the sense thats why nothing ever really gets released from him.

He did once say IIRC, that he'd like to rethink the second album in its entirety. He's not really happy with it... i read that somewhere...

 

Perhaps the differences with the English and German mixes are that he just wasn't as inspired to spend as much time on the Deusch albums (kind of like mixing for albums once the singles were done back in the 60's...?), although he wanted another chance to try his hand at some of his earlier production choices, and doing the whole album in another language gave his the chance to give them another go.

My impression (although I haven't listened to either Deusch LP for some time now), is that although they offered fresh challenges, his heart really wasn't in doing all the work on the same album over again, rather than two specific sounds for two different audiences.

Go ahead, b*tch-slap me...!

 

In the Jan. '83 Trouser Press interview quoted above pretty much says both the third and fourth album took long enough that they encapsulated a sound he had moved beyond. Obviously he continued to tour in support of the albums but my sense is that he was moving beyond the layered sound - the Plays Live LPs already sound different, as of course did 'Across the River.' Then there is always the chance he simply didn't want to work with David Lord anymore than necessary.

So, what did everyone think of Security?

 

Peter Gabriel (IV) is another great effort. I love it, although I agree it's overproduced. Some of the tracks on the Plays Live album are better IMO (San Jacinto, Shock the Monkey...)

 

They certainly have more light and breath to them, partly IMO because they were live. I like the version of 'D.I.Y.' also.

But IV/SECURITY does have some tremendous vocals on it, especially in 'Rhythm' and 'San Jacinto' (I hold the line). I can't help but wonder how much better tracks like 'Shock the Monkey' and 'Kiss of Life' would have been with real horn sections instead of keyboard-based ones....

Still, the lead single from it does have one of my favorite non-album b-sides:

 

I've always loved this album. Security seemed to move away from the intense starkness and dread of Melt, replacing it with a warmer, and at least to my ears, more human sound (ironic, as he was incorporating more digital electronics in the recording). Songs like "San Jacinto" and "Wallflower" are absolutely gorgeous, while the rhythmic vibe on "Rhythm of the Heat" and throughout this entire album is simply mind-blowing.

 

Even if like the all-instrumental Passion a little more, IV/Security is the fully-formed and realized masterpiece of this catalog, in my book.

I like the slightly claustrophobic feel of this album, yet nothing is muffled or lost... and the glorious percussion comes right up front and center.

The songs themselves are among the strongest of his career, not a clunker in the bunch... imo, he wouldn't make an album so robust and cohesive again until Up.