Older news I missed, sorry! Kate pays tribute to her friend Peter Gabriel in the April edition of MOJO magazine. “The art-rock guru looks back on his astonishing 40-year career. From fronting progressive masters Genesis to solo pop success, his is a story of restless toil and adventure. With a new album set for release in March, Gabriel guides us through a unique life in music. PLUS! Kate Bush, Elbow and Vampire Weekend salute the legend!”

I have huge amounts of respect for Peter and his work. He is one of the rare artists who is instantly recognisable through his music, with his stunning voice and his individual style of writing and arranging. ‘Ah yes, I know who that is, that’s Peter!’ He is a great humanitarian and is involved in so many projects outside of music, which is also part of why he’s so interesting. Always delightful to work with, a really lovely person who knows exactly what he wants, it’s fun just being with him. I think the most intriguing thing about him is his transformation when he is on-stage. Off-stage, on more than one occasion, I have seen Peter walk across a room where lines of invisible trip wires have mysteriously appeared across the floor. Perhaps it’s just a cup of coffee or a pile of magazines that have flown across the carpet, with Peter looking slightly bewildered as to why all this stuff has taken off around him. This is part of his charm and I think it’s adorable. He then steps onto a stage and becomes an alarmingly powerful, confident, sexy and enormously charismatic performer. Playful, brave and absolutely fascinating. I really love Peter, he’s one of my favourite human beings.

Mojo’s writers voted on a Peter Gabriel Top Ten songs and present them on the Mojo site here. Kate features on two of the tracks selected, no prizes for guessing they are Games Without Frontiers and Don’t Give Up. “Now imbued with a strange post-Glasnost nostalgia, Games Without Frontiers sounds especially melancholy, Gabriel’s sinister child-catcher delivery and Kate Bush’s eerie “jeux sans frontières” all underscored by that heartbreaking River Kwai whistling” Mojo on Don’t Give Up: “Modernized folk ballad inherits crazy jazz chords, fretless bass and Fairlight, becomes ’80s high-concept pop fantasia. Peter’s a proud working man facing economic catastrophe, the voice cracking as shame and anguish crash over him (how relevant isthis?); Kate Bush is unbowed wifey, injecting hope with every tremor one of the most poignant vocal performances in pop history. If Sting had done this… oh, it doesn’t bear thinking about.” If you haven’t got your hands on a copy of the magazine yet, there’s a taster feature here which streams Gabriel’s new album. Liz Fraser is on the cover of the free cover CD by the way, and Midlake and Rufus Wainwright are featured. Yeah, I’ll be getting this 🙂