When you’re a world-famous perfectionist weirdo, you can probably get away with a two-decade break between full releases of new material, right? Well, Peter Gabriel’s certainly finding out.

Twelve songs. (Two or three versions of each, depending on how you’re counting.) In the works since 2021, or since the 1990s, or since any date you want to pick along the way, depending on who you ask. A release schedule comprised of “one new song every full moon throughout 2023, a different mix of that same song every new moon following.” Released on Bandcamp, for good or ill. It’s a helluva project, but is it any good?

Well, here’s an answer: I’ll just flat-out say that i/o is Peter Gabriel’s crowning masterwork. It’s intricately detailed, it’s gorgeously layered, and every minute of every hour of every year of effort shines through on every single song.

Even the kind-of-dull ones.

Full disclosure, I only bought about half of the “Bright-Side” single tracks released throughout the calendar year. Then I picked up the whole double-CD set (with bonus digital download) a week or so ago when it came available. The reason I didn’t have a review ready-to-post on release day is that I hadn’t really sat with half of these songs like I might have otherwise. I knew I’d be buying the whole darned thing anyway so I only paid for “extra” copies of the songs that really grabbed me in the preview listen session on the website. A fanboy I am, but not an extravagant one.

With both sets of mixes at hand, the next task became choosing between them for each song. The “Bright-Side” mixes are (comparatively) the shiny and peppy versions, while the “Dark Side” mixes are… just slightly gloomier versions. They’re still the same song with the same runtime. Only the flourishes and finer details are changed. Here’s a run-down of my favorite songs and which mix I prefer:

• “Road To Joy” (Bright-Side Mix) – Honestly, this was the hardest choice between the two mixes. Were I given the opportunity I’d want to craft a mix which blends my favorite elements of the two (and discards the elements from each existing mix I’m not as fond of). If you’re wondering which song on the album is “Peter being weirdly horny,” look no further. He’s good at it! I mean, consider the success rate of “weirdly horny PG songs” on the charts back in the days of yore. “Sledgehammer,” “Kiss That Frog,” and so on.
• “Four Kinds of Horses” (Dark-Side Mix) – Another tough, tough choice. I love this song and either mix is perfectly fine. Kind of gloomy, yet somehow kind of not? Beautiful, haunting, compelling.
• “I/O” (Bright-Side Mix) – The title track is the thesis statement. “I’m just a part of everything.” He’s covered this kind of philosophical ground before but here, it’s at its most distilled.
• “Panopticom” (Dark-Side Mix) – The first track to drop back at the top of the year. While I generally like it, I also don’t entirely get what it’s trying to say. (That’s not PG’s fault, honestly. I don’t process lyrics very well, as regular readers might recall.) It’s fine!
• “The Court” (Dark-Side Mix) – A case where the mix can make just enough difference: I sort of bounced off of this one when the Bright-Side version dropped on Bandcamp. It wasn’t until I sat with the Dark-Side rendition that something about it hooked me in. Kind of an odd piece overall, but PG’s an odd fellow, so that tracks.

The remaining selections from the twelve total actual compositions range from “they’re okay” to “that’s really very not-for-me.” At no point do any of them feel phoned in. They just don’t connect with me. Which is okay! I don’t think any Peter Gabriel record since So has been 100% my jam. (And really, So is an outlier on a lot of levels.)

All of i/o is worth a listen, though. Bop over to the album’s Bandcamp page and check it out. I fully recommend it.