Peter Gabriel says he is working on a clutch of "organic dance" tracks for his next album.
The former Genesis man has not released an album of original material since 2002’s Up and has tentatively called the follow-up I/O, although no release date has been revealed.
He says he tends to wrote “moody” songs and wants to move away from that mould on his next record.
Gabriel tells Rolling Stone: “I’m trying to do some happy stuff. Even now. Because it’s very easy for me to fall into some moody stuff.
“I wanna do something that’s more dance-y, and more like an organic dance record. I’ve got a couple of songs I’ve been working on the last two weeks that I think are beginning to go in that direction.
“I’m a self-conscious dancer publicly. But privately I really enjoy it. You know I was a drummer originally and I love grooves, I love rhythm. My kids would tell me I’m not quite good, but I am enthusiastic.”
Gabriel has long been a champion of world music, through his Real World Music label and WOMAD movement. Though he is confident the label can continue to go from strength to strength, he admits he fears for the future of the industry as a whole.
He adds: “It’s tough nowadays because the record business, in a lot of respects is a corpse. Live music isn’t. I always think it’s a corpse with a lot of interesting worms crawling out of it.
“The practical thing is that the money is gone. Some of the artists were getting 50, 60% of their income in some cases, from records. And that’s pretty much gone and the institutions like Spotify that have replaced record stores don’t pay very much, if at all.
“For us old-timer bigger artists, we’re doing very well on live and it’s fine. But not for a lot of smaller artists, young artists, or niche artists.”
Gabriel was named Prog God at Prog Magazine’s Progressive Music Awards this year, and he returns to the UK for a string of dates in November and December.
Nov 28: Birmingham LG Arena
Nov 30: Sheffield Motorpoint Arena
Dec 01: Cardiff Motorpoint Arena
Dec 03: London SSE Arena Wembley
Dec 04: Newcastle Metro Radio Arena
Dec 07: Liverpool Echo Arena
Dec 08: Aberdeen AECC
Dec 10: Dublin O2 Arena
