Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Artist: Gabriel, Peter
Label: Charisma Records
Released: 1992
Length: 57:41
Rating: 5/5
After the huge success of the phenomenal album “So” (1986), which made him an international pop-rock star, the legendary singer, sonic innovator and all-round artist needed a bit more time for his next ambitious studio project than most people expected. After the film soundtrack “Passion (1989) cemented his role as a key figure in popularizing world music in the Western world, he decided to merge the best qualities of both highly successful albums into the ideal combination, one that would reflect his image as a versatile composer, world musician and sonic visionary in the mature years of his life’s journey. The result of that experiment was “Us”, another monumental album in Peter’s career, with which he once again scored magnificent successes in popular music, while showing art rock fans some of the most mature songwriting results of his long career.
“Us” once again features the traditional production perfection that Peter and his longtime Canadian collaborator Daniel Lanois had nurtured since the very start of their work together. The album weaves elements of pop rock, ambient and world music into a unique art pop-rock blend. Most of the compositions stand out for their deep ambient sections and varied world-music rhythmic elements, though there’s no shortage of bouncier, sarcastically tinged pop-rock numbers either, like the hits “Steam” and “Digging in the Dirt”, without a doubt the best-known songs on the whole album.
This time too, Gabe was helped in realizing his advanced sonic visions by his longtime instrumental buddies, led by the brilliant bassist Tony Levin (King Crimson), who stands out as always with his technical variety. Besides the regulars, he again gathered a whole army of top-notch guest musicians, among whom names like Peter Hammill (for whom this was already the second appearance on a Gabriel album), Brian Eno, John Paul Johns, Shankar and Sinead O’Connor stood out. Once again he played most of the keyboards himself, which confirmed the constant growth of his abilities as an instrumentalist.
Most of the lyrics reflect a higher degree of maturity and the painful life experiences of a middle-aged man who had a failed marriage and a collapsed affair with the film actress Rosanna Arquette behind him, while also having more and more trouble communicating with his first daughter Anna-Marie, who was going through her tricky teenage years at the time. After therapy, his personal views on relationships took on entirely new dimensions. A smaller portion of the lyrics touches on some social issues that he, as an active human rights campaigner, has always liked to call attention to. “Us” is in every respect his most personal album. You could say it’s the ideal musical handbook for anyone struggling through a personal or relationship crisis, since good old Gabriel hands out a whole pile of wise messages.
The growing estrangement in his relationship with his daughter as a father is reflected in the excellent opening ballad “Come Talk to Me”, which kicks off with Scottish bagpipes, then, layered over traditional percussion and multilayered keyboards, shifts into world-music rhythms. Plenty of harmonies and the use of the Armenian instrument duduk further widen the instrumental scope of the composition. Its greatest strength lies in the rising ambient atmosphere and the almost devout tone of voice with which Gabriel urges his daughter in the chorus to start talking to him again. Sinead O’Connor does a superb job in the daughter’s role on backing vocals. An even better creation is the next ballad, “Love to Be Loved”, where through tender singing he expresses a higher stage of his spiritual awareness and finally settles accounts with all his past relationship complexes. His outstanding vocal performance is further enriched by numerous ambient samples and orchestral arrangements. After one of Gabriel’s most beautiful ballads comes “Blood of Eden”, another excellent track, inspired by the eternal opposites between man and woman, with a vivid metaphor about Adam’s rib. This composition too ranks among Gabe’s deepest artistic creations, with O’Connor once again joining him on backing vocal harmonies in the choruses. Ambient waves and calm world-music rhythms flow through it the whole time, easily carrying the listener off to the legendary “garden of God”. An early version of this fantastic song appeared in the film Until the End of the World.
After these deep, almost meditative personal confessions comes a downright pop-rock bomb with the hit “Steam”. With its cheeky funky rhythms and countless sexual allusions, this song immediately brings Gabe’s ultra-hit “Sledgehammer” to mind. Here good old Gabe turns from a great melancholic into a kind of sharp-tongued entertainer again. The bouncy R&B rhythms are packed with Rhodes’ squealing guitar passages and Levin’s funk-salted bass lines, which inject a hefty dose of punch into the song. The phenomenal video, in which the mischievous guy lets his sexual fantasies off the leash, won a Grammy for best video in 1994. On the ambient “Onyl Us”, where Gabe expresses the frustrations of a long separation and a nostalgia for getting close again to a loved one, he once again proves himself a lover of world-music rhythms. Avant-garde vocalizations and short improvised flourishes on bass and guitar join the ambient samples in the background.
The melancholic “Washing of the Water” is a sleepy ballad, almost a lullaby, built around tender singing and piano accompaniment. You can clearly hear the change in Gabe’s voice, which has become a bit rougher over the years, but his expressive warmth has only grown for it. Next comes the big hit and without a doubt the best-known song on the entire album, the phenomenal art pop burlesque “Digging in the Dirt”, which vividly reflects Gabe’s feelings after therapy, the breakup with Rosanna Arquette and the trouble with his rebellious daughter. Everything about this classic is a pure win; from Gabe’s chameleon-like vocal performance (in the chorus he’s joined on backing vocals by the eternal chameleon Peter Hammill), to Levin’s grooving bass lines, the distorted Rhodes guitar and the playful samples. This classic of his career was accompanied by an equally superb video. In it, Peter went through different emotional stages by way of countless special effects. Hardly anyone was surprised when it won a Grammy for best video in 1993.
“Fourteen Black Paintings”, which refers to fourteen paintings with special symbolism, returns to elements of Arabic folk music. The sonic motifs are similar to those that dominated the album “Passion”. It’s one of the few songs on the album that doesn’t touch on Gabe’s personal problems, but is instead about his vision of a united world, regardless of color, social standing or nationality. Peter poured the motifs of the individual paintings, which were dedicated to the fight for human rights, into the song. His visionary verse is dressed up with opening duduk sounds, multilayered ambient curtains and traditional percussion. The spirited “Kiss That Frog” is inspired by the well-known fairy tale about the princess and the prince enchanted into a frog, waiting for a redeeming kiss, though there are also allusions to oral sex. It’s another bouncy, mostly pop-rock creation. Gabe goes for a cheeky vocal approach here, accompanied by playful guitar riffs, mischievous keyboard passages and complex rhythmic flourishes. The closing “Secret World” is a magnificent new age experiment that sails on hypnotic waves of orchestration and samples. The lyrics were inspired by Gabe’s separation from his first wife Jill and express views on the private world of two great individualists. He later used the song’s title for his second live album from 1994.
With “Us”, the versatile artist and indestructible charismatic added another magnificent achievement to the story of popular music, stamping it with an unusual dose of personal feeling. The album is a one-of-a-kind eclectic masterpiece that draws on world music, pop and ambient and offers an excellent cross-section of the artist’s emotional profile. Despite its exceptional expressive depth and markedly greater compositional maturity, “Us” didn’t reach the same commercial success as “So”. Thanks to certain changes in Gabriel’s personality, brought on by the aforementioned traumatic experiences with members of the “gentler” sex, its mood is much darker than that of its commercially more successful predecessor. Before his next solo effort, which would take a whole ten years of waiting, Peter would crank up the share of darker yet incredibly mature ambient shades even further. The long wait would be richly rewarded in the end.
Lineup
Peter Gabriel – vocals, keyboards
Tony Levin – bass guitar
David Rhodes – guitar
Manu Katché – drums
The Babacar Faye Drummers – sabar drums
Doudou N’Diaye Rose – rhythm patterns
David Bottrill – programming
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Daniel Lanois – backing vocals, guitar, hi-hat, dobro, horn, percussion
Richard Blair – additional keyboards, programming
Chris Ormston – bagpipes
Levon Minassian – duduk
Sinéad O’Connor – backing vocals3
Dmitri Pokrovsky Ensemble – backing vocals
Hassam Ramzy – tabla
Daryl Johnson – hand drum
William Orbit – programming
Bill Dillon – guitar
Brian Eno – additional keyboards
Shankar – violin
Caroline Lavelle – cello
Will Malone – orchestral arrangements
Johnny Dollar – orchestral arrangements
Richard Evans – mandolin, additional engineering
Gus Isidore – guitar
Richard Chappell – sound mix of the transition on track 3
Leo Nocentelli – guitar
Tim Green – tenor saxophone
Reggie Houston – baritone saxophone
Renard Poché – trombone
Kudsi Erguner – ney flute, percussion
Ayub Ogada – backing vocals
Malcolm Burn – horn, additional synthesizers, synth cello
Mark Howard – horn
Babacar Faye – djembe
Assane Thiam – tama, talking drum
Peter Hammill – backing vocals
Richard Macphail – backing vocals
John Paul Jones – surdu, bass guitar, keyboards
Adzido Pan African Dance Ensemble – additional percussion
Manny Elias – Senegalese percussion
Marilyn McFarlane – backing vocals
Production
Peter Gabriel and Daniel Lanois
Track List
1. Come Talk To Me
2. Love To Be Loved
3. Blood Of Eden
4. Steam
5. Only Us
6. Washing Of The Water
7. Digging In The Dirt
8. Fourteen Black Paintings
9. Kiss That Frog
10. Secret World
