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Peter Gabriel: Big Blue Ball
[1] Whole Thing [Original Mix] (F.Bebey/A.Faku/T.Tim Finn) - 5:27
[2] Habibe (N.Atlas/H.Ramzy/N.Sparkes) - 7:12
[3] Shadow (J.Canizares/P.Wemba/Big Blue Ball) - 4:27
[4] Altus Silva (J.Arthur/R.Browne/Deep Forest) - 6:07
[5] Exit Through You (J.Arthur/P.Gabriel/K.Wallinger) - 5:52
[6] Everything Comes from You (R.Evans/J.Hirota/S.Nazarkhan) - 4:42
[7] Burn You Up, Burn You Down (B.Cobham/P.Gabriel/Holmes Brothers) - 4:30
[8] Forest (L.Minassian/A.Ndiaye/V.Reid) - 6:16
[9] Rivers (V.Reid/M.Sebestyén/K.Wallinger) - 5:44
[10] Jijy (A.Ndiaye/Rossy/J.Wobble) - 3:59
[11] Big Blue Ball (P.Gabriel/M.Katché/K.Wallinger) - 4:52
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Peter Gabriel - Organ, Bass, Piano, Keyboards, Vocals, Producer,
Performer, Liner Notes, Author, Soloist, Drones, Original Recording
Producer
Stephen Hague - Accordion, Keyboards, Programming, Producer, Mixing
Karl Wallinger - Acoustic Guitar, Bass, Guitar, Keyboards, Vocals,
Background Vocals, Producer, Author, Original Recording Producer
Sinéad O'Connor - Vocals
Márta Sebestyén - Flute, Vocals
Papa Wemba - Vocals
Hukwe Zawose - Vocals
Eric Mouquet - Piano, Keyboards, Original Recording Producer
Michel Sanchez - Piano, Keyboards, Original Recording Producer
Richard Evans - Guitar, Mandolin, Recorder, Engineer
Tchad Blake - Organ, Bass, Drums, Harmonium, Keyboards, Tambourine,
Tom-Tom, Bells, Shaker, Mixing, Guitar Synth, Hi Hat, Frame Drum
Rupert Hine - Keyboards
Paul Allen - Guitar
Justin Adams - Guitar, Background Vocals
Joseph Arthur - Guitar, Vocals
Natacha Atlas - Vocals
Francis Bebey - Flute
Ronan Browne - Uillean Pipes
Laurent Coatalen - Bongos
Billy Cobham - Drums
Noël Ekwabi - Bass
Adel Eskander - Strings
Wael Abu Bakr - Strings
Alexis Faku - Bass
Joji Hirota - Percussion, Drums, Chinese Drums
Manu Katche - Drums
Ged Lynch - Drums
James McNally - Human Whistle, Low Whistle
Wendy Melvoin - Bass
Levon Minassian - Doudouk
Arona N'diaye - Percussion, Djembe, Sabar
Chuck Norman - Programming, Drones
Papa Wemba Band - Percussion, Conga
Angie Pollock - Piano
Hossam Ramzy & His Egyptian Ensemble - Strings
Hossam Ramzy - Percussion, Drums
Vernon Reid - Guitar, Guitar Synth
David Rhodes - Guitar
Neil Sparkes - Percussion, Drums
Momtaz Talaat - Strings
Timothy Whelan - Saz
Jah Wobble - Bass
Guo Yue - Flute
Reddy Amisi - Background Vocals
Popsy Dixon - Background Vocals
Tim Finn - Background Vocals
Sherman Holmes - Background Vocals
Wendell Holmes - Background Vocals
Sevara Nazarkhan - Background Vocals
Jules Shear - Background Vocals
Andy Lee White - Background Vocals
Richard Chappell - Engineer, Author, Mixing
Ben Findlay - Engineer
Paul Grady - Engineer
Marco Migliari - Engineer
Alex Swift - Engineer
David Bottrill - Engineer
Tony Cousins - Mastering
York Tillyer - Photography
Andrew Catlin - Photography
Pete Williams - Photography
Alan Tabrett - Artwork
Marc Bessant - Design
Tim Cumming - Sleeve Notes
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2008 2L Real World 80145
2008 CD Real World 80145
2008 CD Real World USCDR W150
BIG BLUE BALL is an ongoing collaboration shepherded by Peter Gabriel,
World Party leader Karl Wallinger, and producer Stephen Hague. The
basic tracks for these 11 songs were recorded at Gabriel's Real World
studios between 1991 and 1995, during week-long sessions with special
guests, including Sinead O'Connor, Tim Finn, Marta Sebestyen, Papa
Wemba, Jah Wobble, gospel group the Holmes Brothers, members of Living
Colour, Afro Celt Sound System, and dozens of other American, European,
Asian, and African musicians. Pieced together and remixed in the 13
years following the last of these sessions, BIG BLUE BALL still sounds
primarily like a Gabriel and Wallinger collaboration, with those
singer-songwriters' eclectic sensibilities prevailing, although the
guest singers and musicians are fully represented as well. BIG BLUE
BALL is available as a digital download, a standard CD, a deluxe CD
with enhanced packaging, and a vinyl LP.
"One
week in the middle of summer this craziness exploded in our Real World
Studios. We had this week of invited guests, people from all around the
world, fed by music and a 24 hour café. It was a giant playpen, a bring
your own studio party. There'd be a studio set up on the lawn, in the
garage, in someone's bedroom as well as the seven rooms we had
available. We were curators of sorts of all this living mass. We had
poets and songwriters there, people would come in and scribble things
down, they'd hook up in the café. It was like a dating agency, then
they’d disappear into the darkness and make noises – and we'd be there
to record it."
Peter Gabriel, producer and performer
Almost eighteen years in the making, Big Blue Ball grew from three
extraordinary Recording Weeks at Real World Studios in the summers of
1991, 1992 and 1995. The project's originators and curators were Real
World founder Peter Gabriel and Karl Wallinger of World Party and The
Waterboys.
A huge number of artists came to the village of Box in Wiltshire to
take part in these Recording Weeks, and contributed to writing the
songs, making the music, and being part of that powerful sense of
community that made the Recording Weeks so creative and so fruitful.
The focus was as much on writing together as playing together, and the
final tracks stand as an extraordinary testament to the common elements
that bind so many different forms of music and music making together.
Though not everyone who was there is present on the finished album,
each artist's input was invaluable to the spirit of the enterprise.
Liner Notes
Big Blue Ball is the
long-awaited, much-anticipated collection of stand-out tracks culled
from the all-star, pan-global collaborations that took place over three
years of Peter Gabriel s legendary Recording Week gatherings at his
state-of-the-art Real World Studios in the English countryside.
Produced by Peter Gabriel, Karl Wallinger (of World Party, Waterboys)
and Stephen Hague (Pet Shop Boys, OMD), it s a nonstop stream of
poignant, sterling performances by a truly stellar lineup of artists--
including Gabriel, Wallinger, Sinead O Connor, Natacha Atlas, Iarla O
Lionaird and James McNally (both of Afro Celt Sound System), Papa
Wemba, Joseph Arthur, Tanzania s late music legend Hukwe Zawose,
Hungary s Marta Sebestyen, Tim Finn, Cameroonian starFrancis Bebey,
Vernon Reid, Justin Adams, Jah Wobble, Billy Cobham, Rupert Hine,
gospel group the Holmes Brothers, flamenco guitarist Juan Canizares,
Japanese percussionist Joji Hirota, and many more...in all totaling 75
artists from over 20 countries. It s like a wall of sound coming at
you, listening to the planet from outer space, says Karl Wallinger of
the final mix. It s a real world-view of music, a snapshot of the
music-making continents at that time. It s a more apt time to release
it now than ever before. I think it s actually gathered weight with
time, because it s people from all over the world playing together,
just getting on together. There s an iconic aspect about that which is
probably more important now. Things have become more partisan. It s a
timely reminder of how you can cooperate. Big Blue Ball s songs were
created and recorded between 1991 and 1995, but the album has been an
active work-in-progress at Real World ever since, a labor of love with
ace producer Stephen Hague working closely with Peter Gabriel and Karl
Wallinger. Holding the disparate elements in place is the powerful
backbone of big drum tracks underpinning many of the songs. Wallinger
says, Everyone was in orbit around this groove, and there is a
universal language of dance, of dance grooves. That groove is the one
bit that s non-denominational on the album. Says Peter Gabriel, It s a
fine wine ready to be drunk. It was the most fun music making I ve ever
had. I d love to do it again.
Amazon.com
Big Blue Ball is more of a collective than a band, with the final
project being completed well over a decade after the majority of the
sessions. Back in the '90s (1991, 1992, and 1995 to be exact), Peter
Gabriel and Karl Wallinger invited friends and musicians from around
the world to participate in weeklong collaborative writing and
recording sessions at Real World Studios. The results were then crafted
into this album. Overall, the album crosses the globe-trotting
multiculturalism of Music and Rhythm (the first WOMAD compilation) with
the slick production of Gabriel's Us (released about the same time
these sessions took place). Couple the fact that Gabriel's solo work
has been increasingly infused with world music beginning with Security
and the fact that he's got one of the more recognizable voices in
music, and Big Blue Ball almost plays like a lost Peter Gabriel album.
This is not meant to diminish the strong contributions of others.
Hossam Ramzy and Natacha Atlas take the lead on "Habibe" and Márta
Sebestyén, Sinéad O'Connor, Rossy, and Papa Wemba all turn in great
vocal performances. Joseph Arthur and Iarla Ó Lionáird's "Altus Silva"
actually sounds a bit like Gabriel, and when Arthur joins Gabriel on
"Exit Through You," the result could easily be a So outtake. The sound
changes a bit at the end of the album, moving from the Peter Gabriel
'90s sound to something a bit more 21st century with the Malagasy rap
of "Jijy" and the sampled horns of the title track. It's a bit odd that
Big Blue Ball was so long in coming, but Peter Gabriel fans will find
it was worth the wait.
Sean Westergaard - All Music Guide
Gabriel fans hoping for a follow-up to 2002's Up will have to keep waiting. Big Blue Ball
is neither new nor is it strictly Gabriel, although the pioneering art
rocker's aesthetic stamp (and, on four songs, his voice) is all over
this global-music mosaic. In the early Nineties, Gabriel staged a
series of jam sessions at his Real World Studios in the English
countryside, where musicians ranging from Sinéad O'Connor to Living
Colour guitarist Vernon Reid to soukous legend Papa Wemba sang or
played over multilayered dub and rock, swirling electronics,
pan-African polyrhythms, Spanish guitar, Asian percussion, snaky
Egyptian orchestration and more. After 17 years of meticulous
production, the result of this modern-traditional fusion, though
ambitious, is a bit uneven. Individually, tracks like Malagasy singer
Rossy's mash-up of rap, electronics, funk and jazz on "Jijy" or
Hungarian singer Márta Sebestyén's minimalist beauty, "Rivers," can be
mesmerizing. But old-style prog-rock pretentiousness sometimes rears
its head, such as on the Joseph Arthur-sung throwback "Altus Silva,"
which sounds as though it arrived straight from the Court of the
Crimson King.
MARK KEMP - Aug 7, 2008
Rolling Stone
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