Peter Gabriel has officially begun the rollout of his next studio album, o\i, unveiling its first offering, “Been Undone.” The 12-track project follows 2023’s i/o, which marked the art-rock icon’s first collection of new material in over two decades.
Continuing Gabriel’s tradition of cryptic, two-letter album titles that dates back to 1986’s So, o\i is positioned as a conceptual companion to i/o. While i/o explored humanity’s internal connection to nature, Gabriel describes the new project as its outward-facing counterpart. “These are my lumpy bits,” he explains. “i/o: the inside has a new way out, and o\i: the outside has a new way in.”
Much like its predecessor, o\i will unfold gradually. On every full moon, Gabriel will release a track from the album in two versions — a Dark-Side Mix by Tchad Blake and a Bright-Side Mix by Mark ‘Spike’ Stent — accompanied by a curated piece of visual art. With the Wolf Moon marking the start of this cycle, “Been Undone” arrives today in its Dark-Side Mix.
The artwork for the single comes from São Paulo-based artist Janaina Mello Landini, featuring her 2019 piece Ciclotrama 156 (Palindrome). Gabriel was drawn to the organic complexity of the work, noting that its unraveling rope-like forms evoke fractals, tree trunks, and even the human brain, offering “a lot of entry points” for interpretation.
Musically, “Been Undone” is a nearly eight-minute, slow-burning composition developed at Gabriel’s Real World Studios alongside longtime collaborators Tony Levin, David Rhodes, and Manu Katché. The track expands on a chord progression and guitar motifs originally sketched out decades ago in an unreleased demo titled “Sit.” With its relaxed, loping groove, the song blends reflective lyricism — touching on ideas like mitochondria and the Mandelbrot set — with richly textured instrumentation. Gabriel handles keyboards, while Richard Evans adds mandolin flourishes that deepen the track’s atmospheric pull.
With o\i, Peter Gabriel continues his late-career renaissance, pairing immersive soundscapes with visual art and cosmic timing. If “Been Undone” is any indication, the album promises a meditative, outward-looking journey that builds meaning layer by layer — one full moon at a time.
