Peter Gabriel - This Is Home (Dark-Side Mix)

This Is Home is the tenth track from the album i/o. The first version to be heard is the Dark-Side Mix, by Tchad Blake, released on the full moon 29 September 2023. Listen here: Written and produced by Peter Gabriel, This Is Home is, he says, ‘a love song.’ ‘It began with inspiration from some of the great Tamla Motown rhythm sections so we’re trying to recreate that in a modern way, complete with the tambourine and handclaps. The groove I like a lot, Tony Levin does a great bass part there.’ ‘I did an unusual thing for me in that I tried doing this low voice / high voice thing, so you get this almost conversational voice at the beginning and the second part is a higher, more emotional voice. I thought that would be both intimate and emotive to put the two side by side.’ Though he doesn’t appear on the final track, some of the early brainstorming for what was to become This Is Home was done with the DJ and producer Skrillex; ‘I’d had a call from Skrillex, who’s a very talented musician, and I thought it would be interesting to see what he had in mind, so he came to my home studio and we sat down and talked and tried to evolve bits and pieces and it was mainly for this song. He was trying to encourage me to write a song about staying up all night in a night club and that sort of thing, but that’s not really my life so I made it more about family and home and I like it. Though we took the song in this other direction it was an interesting experience nonetheless, and I think it is good for me to be taken outside my normal comfort zone sometimes.’ This Is Home features contributions from a Swedish male voice choir called Orphei Drängar, as well as another orchestral arrangement from John Metcalfe; ‘I think it’s got a groove but unlike most pop songs that have a middle eight or bridge this has two and they are both quite different. The first one is atmospheric and dreamy and we have this amazing all male choir which comes in slowly into this dreamy, garden-like section. The choir, Orphei Drängar, are based in Sweden and I think they get a fantastic sound, it’s dark, stirring and emotional. The strings in the other middle section I really like, it’s quite catchy, poppy in a way. I think John picked up on what I was trying to go for there and did a beautiful job, as always.’ This September full moon release comes with artwork from the artist David Moreno and his work ‘Conexión de catedral II’. ‘The artwork this month is a wonderful piece by David Moreno. I was looking for contemporary art that represented the house or home in some ways and we saw a few things but his really stuck out. David often makes these one-colour, house-like symbols with piano wire connecting and I think it is very unique work. This is a relationship song, so given what I was trying to do with the lyric it felt like his image with the two doors was a very natural match. He was up for letting us use it, so I am very grateful to David for that.’ This Is Home comes with differing mix approaches from Tchad Blake (Dark-Side Mix), released on the full moon 29 September, and also Mark ‘Spike’ Stent (Bright-Side Mix) and Hans-Martin Buff’s Atmos mix (In-Side Mix), released in mid-October.