Listen to Peter Gabriel’s new track, “Put The Bucket Down”

Peter Gabriel has released “Put The Bucket Down”, the second track from his forthcoming album oi.

Following on from “Been Undone”, which was released on January’s Wolf Moon, “Put The Bucket Down” has been released on the Snow Moon.

New songs from oi will be released on subsequent full moons, revealing the whole album at the end of the year.

As with i/o, each song will come with differing interpretations in the shape of Dark-Side and Bright-Side mixes, by Tchad Blake and Mark ‘Spike’ Stent respectively.

Today, you can hear the Bright-Side Mix by Mark ‘Spike’ Stent; Tchad Blake’s Dark-Side Mix of “Put The Bucket Down” will be released on February 17, on the new moon.

Says Gabriel, “As a side project, I am working on a show with the brain as the central core and there are a number of songs, some on i/o and some on oi that will be part of that. This is one of those and it’s a point in the narrative where we can both read and write thoughts and the person singing is not sure whether he has his own thoughts or not. Is he inside his own mind or inside someone else’s?

“The ‘bucket’ is all the crap that goes around our head all the time, so it is putting the bucket down to find your way forward…

“I started building rhythmic elements around, what I call, a lop-sided loop, and got quite excited. When we had the band play it, it really came to life so that feels good for me. The band and me working away is the bulk of the song, but when we were in the orchestral sessions, I asked John Metcalfe to come up with a part – it was scribbled out on the day in the studio – which is ridiculously simple, but it serves the song nicely.

“We’re also blessed with horn players. I was very lucky on the last record to play with Paolo Fresu and then Josh Shpack on the tour and they’ve both done a version of the instrumental melody on this too.”

The artwork for “Put The Bucket Down” comes from Tomás Saraceno and three different type of spiders, Cyrtophora citricola, Nephila senegalensis and Holocnemus pluchei. The work is called Cosmic Spider/Web.

“I’m delighted this month that we have an artwork created by Tomás Saraceno and 12 spiders who are credited with authorship on this,” says Gabriel.

“He’s a really interesting artist and his Aerocene project was the first thing that I came across.

“This work, integrating with nature and co-creating with spiders is fascinating. I think it’s a beautiful thing and somehow there seems to be a connection with webs and nature and the brain, so for me, it fits right in. In this case, Tomás heard the music and chose this image as something that he thought was appropriate. Thank you to Tomás and his team and please check out what he does.”