Peter Gabriel Release New Song “Olive Tree”

Peter Gabriel releases the track “Olive Tree” taken from his upcoming album, i/o.

Gabriel has been releasing songs every full moon of 2023. “Olive Tree” marks the eighth track from the forthcoming album. Talking about the new song, the singer described it as “part of a separate brain-related project” and is inspired by his interest in brain reading research.

He further explained:

“It feeds into this idea that we’re no longer these islands that have our own private thoughts, that our thoughts are going to get opened up to the outside world.
“The lubrication that allows society to function is based, in part, on not being able to read what’s going on in other people’s minds, so unless we get more comfortable with how we really are, we’re probably going to prefer to stay partly buried in our private worlds.”

The newly-released track features a string arrangement by John Metcalfe, plus Manu Katche on drums, Tony Levin on bass, David Rhodes on guitar, Josh Shpak on trumpet and additional percussion by Ged Lynch. It also comes with related artwork, Barthelemy Toguo’s “Chroniques avec la Nature.”

Gabriel mentioned:

“I was aware of Barthelemy Toguo’s work, which I found very haunting and very strong, but I first met him at [World of Music, Arts and Dance] in 2015, when he came as artist in residence.
“I wasn’t talking about this project at that time, but when I was thinking about re-connecting to nature his work seemed ideal. I think it’s super strong and looks wonderful onstage.”

The rocker is scheduled to embark on a worldwide tour with North American dates kicking off on September 8.