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Rating:
The day after the release of Peter Gabriel's untitled fourth album (1982, 'Security' in the States), a friend and I skipped school to buy it, and we locked ourselves at home to listen to it in peace, full of anticipation for what the wonderful predecessor from two years earlier had hinted at. A careful examination of the cover led us to dim the room for the sake of atmosphere, and in the silence, the needle dropped onto the distant crescendo of synthesized drums in 'Rhythm Of The Heat'. After the first two tracks, we were literally frozen, and the temporary pauses of relative normality did nothing to ease the pathos of the terrifying 'Family And The Fishing Net' or the dramatic 'Lay Your Hands On Me'. A shocking listen, an innovative and extremely bold album, another reason to accept Gabriel's long-past and completed defection from the Book of Genesis. Too different, too alien and intellectual, too far from the origins of rock.
'Peter Gabriel IV' (as the album has always been called) is still one of the records that have marked the lives and artistic sensitivity of many of us. The crystalline beauty of the third album, very futuristic in sound yet somehow still understandable and 'rock', here turns into a dramatic, engaging and captivating essay on human anthropology, on existing and vanished cultures, on world music and the primal collective unconscious, on man's fears and the Africa within each of us. Gabriel dons his latest terrifying mask—an African mask—and it's no coincidence he calls on his friend Peter Hammill, whose contribution to the kick-start of the esteemed Womad project was in 1980 the terrible and mysterious track 'A Ritual Mask', an African nightmare of rare strength and dissonance. (Gabriel's own unreleased contribution, 'Across The River', prefigured for those attentive to the double vinyl the themes and epic nature of the upcoming album).
The opening is one of the most intense one can imagine, where a strangled warble over the hypnotic carpet of percussion throws us into the primal nightmare of Carl Gustav Jung's shocking experiences in Africa. The dark African, the power of the earth and the spear that wounds and kills, the heritage and call of blood, the rejection of technology and the Western world ('smash the radio') reach a terrifying climax in the tribal roar of the Drums of Burundi, to fade into an echo full of pathos and welcome the asymmetric marimbas of 'San Jacinto'. It's a circular pattern in odd times, taken directly from Steve Reich's minimalism, which takes us to an imaginary burial place of the Native Americans, imbued with similar magic and elemental spirits: a place of supreme power and suggestion, where from the earth rise the voices of dead Indians speaking of a proud and brave people, of its tenacity, its right to live, and its union with the spirits of animals and nature. A poignant and deeply lyrical piece, perhaps Peter Gabriel's best ever interpretation (clearly very emotionally involved), seeing in the conclusion of the first part ('I hold the line...') the most epic point of his civil, cultural, and political testimony. Even in concert, the long track will conclude with the voices of the dead Native Americans, a terrible indictment for a terrible page in human history, and thousands and thousands of spectators in arenas worldwide will raise their fists and voices with Peter, as they had shouted and will continue to shout for the sacred memory of Steven Biko and the martyrs of apartheid.
Needless to say, the rest of the album maintains the alien coordinates of the initial two tracks. The context being clearly defined, the author allows himself some excellent interludes that are only seemingly less demanding—'I Have The Touch', the famous 'Shock The Monkey', the concluding 'Kiss Of Life' (in 10/4!)—without which we would have collapsed well before consuming the album, but the sonic exploration remains at the highest levels with constant use of steel drums, noise gate, Tony Levin's innovative stick bass, Jerry Marotta's tribal percussion, and especially the Fairlight, which is certainly not used here as on Ramazzotti’s records (no offense to Ramazzotti). The superb Fairlight sampler allows David Lord and Larry Fast, and Gabriel himself, to utilize fragments of the most sinister and unusual environmental sounds (sounds of water, wind, and rocks), processing them to modify the sound of instruments, particularly (but not exclusively) keyboards. The strange percussive pattern of the unsettling and tribal 'Lay Your Hands On Me' (during which performance PG will start to let himself be physically carried by the audience) derives, for example, from the sound of a rolling pebble.
Sounds and whistles and cavernous voices, and backward drums, and stick bass and Fairlight as if it were raining, instead compose the terrifying 'The Family And The Fishing Net', in which Peter Hammill's conceptual contribution is significant. It is the most 'fearsome' and dark track ever made by Peter Gabriel, a story and bloody nightmare of tremendous tribal marriage rites and blood and flesh unity, a piece without resolution and without exit with an irregular and menacing metric. Also a nightmare live, on the album it contrasts with the only truly light-filled song on the record: the beautiful and vibrant 'Wallflower', a song of protest but also of hope, a story and account of all those tortured and killed for ideological reasons worldwide, with particular reference to the South American disappeared. As always, Gabriel does not simply sing and mourn their fate but calls for civil and political engagement, the voice is firm and proud, the fist is raised once again, and ours with his, once again. Peter came to Italy on the tour that followed the album, and I too got lost in the sea of raised voices and hands, one of the most beautiful and engaging live sets I have ever had the fortune to attend, also because in those years he had an unparalleled voice and an unmatched stage presence and expressive intensity.
At the end of the exhausting series of concerts, Peter will release an exciting double live album and will stop for three years to rethink his artistic path, aware that he could not go further in this direction. Culmination and sum of all the insights that had taken him in six years from 'Here Comes The Flood' to 'San Jacinto', Gabriel's fourth album remains the most extreme and incisive work ever recorded by this artist and one of the most personal and courageous ever made. A record to take to a desert island, to give to your children so they know and won't be drowned by musical and cultural rubbish, an album that hits the stomach and shines with an inextinguishable light despite the thirty-two years since its release.
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
01 The Rhythm Of The Heat (05:15)
Looking out the window
I see the red dust clear
High up on the red rock
Stands the shadow with the spear
The land here is strong
Strong beneath my feet
it feeds on the blood
it feeds on the heat
The rhythm is below me
The rhythm of the heat
The rhythm is around me
The rhythm has control
The rhythm is inside me
The rhythm has my soul
The rhythm of the heat
The rhythm of the heat
The rhythm of the heat
The rhythm of the heat
Drawn across the plainland
To the place that is higher
Drawn into the circle
That dances round the fire
We spit into out hands
And breathe across the palms
Raising them up high
Help open to the sun
Self-conscious, uncertain
I'm showered with the dust
The spirit enter into me
And I submit to trust
Smash the radio
No outside voices here
Smash the watch
Cannot tear the day to shreds
Smash the camera
Cannot steal away the spirits
The rhythm is around me
The rhythm has control
The rhythm is inside me
The rhythm has my soul
02 San Jacinto (06:22)
Thick cloud - steam rising - hissing stone on sweat lodge fire
Around me - buffalo robe - sage in bundle - run on skin
Outside - cold air - stand, wait for rising sun
Red paint - eagle feathers - coyote calling - it has begun
Something moving in - I taste it in my mouth and in my heart
It feels like dying - slow - letting go of life
Medicine man lead me up though town - Indian ground -
so far down
Cut up land - each house - a pool - kids wearing water
wings - drink in cool
Follow dry river bed - watch Scout and Guides make
pow-wow signs
Past Geronimo's disco - Sit 'n' Bull steakhouse - white
men dream
A rattle in the old man's sack - look at mountain top -
keep climbing up
Way above us the desert snow - white wind blow
I hold the line - the line of strength that pulls me through
the fear
San Jacinto - I hold the line
San Jacinto - the poison bite and darkness take my sight -
I hold the line
And the tears roll down my swollen cheek - think I'm losing
it - getting weaker
I hold the line - I hold the line
San Jacinto - yellow eagle flies down from the sun -
from the sun
We will walk - on the land
We will breathe - of the air
We will drink - from the stream
We will live - hold the line
03 I Have The Touch (04:33)
The time I like is the rush hour, cos I like the rush
The pushing of the people - I like it all so much
Such a mass of motion - do not know where it goes
I move with the movement and ... I have the touch
I'm waiting for ignition, I'm looking for a spark
Any chance collision and I light up in the dark
There you stand before me, all that fur and all that hair
Oh, do I dare ... I have the touch
Wanting contact
I'm wanting contact
I'm wanting contact with you
Shake those hands, shake those hands
Give me the thing I understand
Shake those hands, shake those hands
Shake those hands, shake those hands
Any social occasion, it's hello, how do you do
All those introductions, I never miss my cue
So before a question, so before a doubt
My hand moves out and ... I have the touch
Wanting contact
I'm wanting contact
I'm wanting contact with you
Shake those hands, shake those hands
Give me the thing I understand
Shake those hands, shake those hands
Pull my chin, stroke my hair, scratch my nose, hug my knees
Try drink, food, cigarette, tension will not ease
I tap my fingers, fold my arms, breathe in deep, cross my legs
Shrug my shoulders, stretch my back - but nothing seems
to please
I need contact
I need contact
Nothing seems to please
I need contact
05 Shock The Monkey (05:25)
Cover me when I run
Cover me through the fire
Something knocked me out' the trees
Now I'm on my knees
Cover me, darling please
Monkey, monkey, monkey
Don't you know when you're going to shock the monkey
Fox the fox
Rat on the rat
You can ape the ape
I know about that
There is one thing you must be sure of
I can't take any more
Darling, don't you monkey with the monkey
Monkey, monkey, monkey
Don't you know you're going to shock the monkey
Wheels keep turning
Something's burning
Don't like it but I guess I'm learning
Shock! - watch the monkey get hurt, monkey
Cover me, when I sleep
Cover me, when I breathe
You throw your pearls before the swine
Make the monkey blind
Cover me, darling please
Monkey, monkey, monkey
Don't you know you're going to shock the monkey
Too much at stake
Ground beneath me shake
And the news is breaking
Shock! - watch the monkey get hurt, monkey
Shock the monkey
Shock the monkey
Shock the monkey to life
07 Wallflower (06:29)
Hold on, you have gambled with your own life
And you face the night alone
While the builders of the cages
Sleep with the bullets, bars and stone.
They do not see your road to freedom
That you build with flesh and bone
They take you out - the light burns your eyes
To tha taking room - it's no surprise
Loaded questions from clean white coats
Their eyes are all as hidden as their Hippocratico Oath
They tell you how to behave, behave as their guest
You want to resist them, you do your best
They take you to your limits, they take you beyond
For all that they are doing there's no way to respond.
Hold on, hold on
They put you in a box so you can't get hurt
Let you spirit stay unbroken, may you not be deterred.
Hold on, you have gambled with your own life
And you face the night alone
While the builders of the cages
Sleep with bullets, bars and stone,
They do not see your road to freedom
That you build with flesh and bone.
Though you may disappear, you're not forgotten here
And I will say to you, I will do what I can do.
You may disappear, you're not forgotten here
And I will say to you, I will do what I can do
And I will do what I can do
And I will do what I can do
08 Kiss Of Life (04:19)
See me a big woman, big woman look how you dance
See me a big woman, big woman caught in a trance
Dancing on the tabletop, covered up with the Easter feast
You're dancing for the fishermen, from the very large right
to the least
Dancing for the slow release, first the boy and then the beast
Then the beast
Burning, buring with the kiss of life
Burning, buring with the kiss of life
See me, a big woman, big woman so full of life
See me, a big woman, big woman going to be my wife
Watching for the different eyes - they change your face -
they come inside
Watch the spirits laugh and cry, watch them find a place
to hide
Watch the spirits talk in tongues, watch them take you for
a ride
Down at the ocean lies a body in the sand
Big woman sits beside, head in hand
With heat from her skin, and fire from her breath
She blows hard, she slows deep in the mouth of death
Burning, burning with the kiss of life
Burning, burning with the kiss of life
Burning, burning with the kiss of life
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Other reviews
By Grasshopper
Peter Gabriel finally finds the friendly current that allows him to reach very high altitudes.
"The Rhythm Of The Heat" is an overwhelming track with a magical build-up of tension, culminating in thunderous African percussion.
By paolofreddie
"I would need to feel the chills down my back and head when 'The Rhythm of the Heat' starts, with that primal scream and Gabriel’s voice crescendo."
"Would you like to be on a deserted island, sitting on the beach with your feet in the cool water, ready to dirty them and set them in motion to the sound of your music?"
