Tim Shaw & Peter Gabriel Collaboration for Long Awaited 'I/O'

We are so proud that Tim Shaw’s ‘Burning of Lifting the Curse’, in association with Anima Mundi, has become part of Peter Gabriel’s ‘i/o’ album project and live tour. Continuing the idea developed for Gabriel’s US and UP albums, he has again invited a range of world renowned visual artists to collaborate with their art to accompany the music and each of i/o’s 12 songs. As Gabriel says "The dozen artists make an exceedingly impressive team of collaborators!" Ai Weiwei, Nick Cave, Olafur Eliasson, Henry Hudson, Annette Messager, Antony Micallef, David Moreno, Cornelia Parker, Megan Rooney, Tim Shaw, David Spriggs and Barthélémy Toguo are all involved in the project.

Tim’s work accompanies the song ‘The Court’, written and produced by Peter Gabriel, and recorded at Real World Studios in Wiltshire and The Beehive in London, and features contributions from Brian Eno alongside Tony Levin, David Rhodes and Manu Katché, as well as backing vocals from Peter’s daughter Melanie Gabriel. The orchestral arrangement is by John Metcalfe with Peter Gabriel and was recorded at British Grove Studios in London with a number of players who previously featured in the New Blood Orchestra.

‘I had this idea for ‘the court will rise’ chorus, so it became a free-form, impressionistic lyric that connected to justice, but there’s a sense of urgency there. A lot of life is a struggle between order and chaos and in some senses the justice or legal system is something that we impose to try and bring some element of order to the chaos. That’s often abused, it’s often unfair and discriminatory but at the same time it’s probably an essential part of a civilised society. But we do need to think sometimes about how that is actually realised and employed.’ 

The song is partly inspired by the work of NAMATI whose mission is to provide people around the world access to justice they may not otherwise be able to afford. ‘I recommend you check them out,’ says Gabriel. ‘They do a brilliant job assembling teams around the world to help with different issues.’

Shaw’s ritual installation Lifting the Curse was originally created to literally lift the curse that was issued to the Royal Academy and its members by the artists Gilbert & George, but is also addresses a wider gathering of dark forces with particular reference to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The ritual burning was Royal Academy member Shaw’s visceral and robust response to them both.

Gabriel states "Tim Shaw is a great artist whose work is powerful, political and shamanistic. He has often dealt with tough themes such as war and torture. He grew up in Belfast so experienced the fear and reality of seeing violence around him, which I am sure must have made a deep impression. This particular image has an unusual story attached, but I just responded to the photograph of this very strange figure that was being ritualistically burnt. The story behind it, I only discovered afterwards."

"I don’t know why that particular image was chosen for this track," says Tim Shaw "but thinking about it, it could be that when you look at the figure perhaps it stands there to be accused, judged and in this case it’s burnt as a punishment process that takes place."

The long awaited release of ‘i/o’ has met with widespread acclaim.

For more information on Peter Gabriel’s ‘i/o' click here

For more information on Tim Shaw click here