Big Blue Ball
- by Big Blue Ball
- Realworld Region: Africa, Asia 1, Asia 2, Caribbean, Europe, North America, Oceania, South America
- Jun 2008
There is a dedicated website for Big Blue Ball with more information along with audio and video from the project.
Peter Gabriel, producer and performer"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."
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.
"Exit Through You" taken from the album is available for you to remix at Realworld Remixed
Reviews
Big Blue Ball
….It’s a good thing Gabriel took his time, too, because the final product benefits from contemporary mixing concepts and technology that simply were not on the map when the music was created – as well as from the perspective hindsight brings.
Big Blue Ball
More than 17 years in the making, Big Blue Ball is the brainchild of Peter Gabriel, who produced the jam sessions at his Real World studio in southwest England. Many of the songs were cut in the early '90s, but these cross-cultural experiments rarely sound dated.
Snapshots of a Colourful Landscape
Between 1991 and 1995, Peter Gabriel hosted a trio of "recording weeks" at his England studios that fostered collaborative environments for artists from around the world. The tapes from those sessions fell into disarray until producer Stephen Hague recently sorted out and completed selected pieces under the title "Big Blue Ball." The results are snapshots of a colorful landscape, an array of rich sonic patchworks from a palette so diverse that they are exotic to every ear.
A Snapshot of the music-making continents at the time
Sixteen years in the making, Peter Gabriel's Big Blue Ball is now out on Real World Records. This all-star collaboration began in 1992 during a "Recording Week" at Real World Studios when Gabriel opened the doors to 75 international artists from over 20 countries. This series of weeklong residential sessions continued over three years. "The idea was to put rock musicians together with musicians from all over the world and see what happened," Gabriel says. "We ran the studio like a dating service with a 24-hour cafe."
The 11 tracks on Big Blue Ball offer a world-view of music, a snapshot of the music-making continents at that time. Featuring Gabriel on lead vocals on several tracks, performances also include Karl Wallinger, Tim Finn, Sinead O'Connor collaborating with Japanese percussionist Joji Hirota, Natacha Atlas singing with an Egyptian string section brought in by Hossam Ramzy, The Holmes Brothers with Billy Cobham on drums, and Papa Wemba's extraordinary vocals paired with the flamenco guitar of Juan Manuel Cañizares.
Big Blue Ball
During the 1990’s, musicians from around the world gathered for recording weeks at Real World studios. On this volume, 18 years in the mixing, Peter Gabriel sings on several tracks: “Whole Thing” is wonderful…Real World fellow-travellers are represented: Papa Wemba and Juan Canizares mix rumba and flamenco; Sinead O’Connor delivers an earnest hymn, and Natacha Atlas sings with Natacha Atlas sings with Hossam Ramzy’s Egyptian orchestra.
Big Blue Ball
…Notables include Natacha Atlas, American vocal wonders The Holmes Brothers and African legend Papa Wemba. The result is a cross-cultural blend – arty Western rock, Eastern textures and African funk – with moments of brilliance…
Stunning…A Global Melting Pot of Music.
… Over three summers in the Nineties, Peter Gabriel assembled a wide range of musicians at his Real World Studios for sessions….The results were stunning: A global melting pot of music, we even hear the great man himself singing on four tracks. Artists including Sinead O’Connor, Billy Cobham and Jah Wobble, styles include dub, rock, rap , electro and jazz with plenty of African and Asian flavours.
Philadelphia Daily News
A mere 16 years in the making, Peter Gabriel's "Big Blue Ball" (Real World, B) has finally been judged suitable for release by the artist. It's the end result of a lengthy world-music party that brought talents from more than 20 countries to Gabriel's Real World Studios.
Gabriel sings lead on several tracks, trading licks with Karl Wallinger, Joseph Arthur and the Holmes Brothers, but mostly keeping the ball in his court. Other notable contributions include a sparking, Afro-flamenco pairing of vocalist Papa Wemba with guitarist Juan Canizares and the lovely, techno-folk-Celtic merger of Deep Forest, Arthur and Iarla O Lionaird.
Tracklist & Audio Samples
| play | Whole Thing (Original Mix) |
| play | Habibe |
| play | Shadow |
| play | altus silva |
| play | Exit Through You |
| play | Everything Comes From You |
| play | Burn You Up, Burn You Down |
| play | Forest |
| play | Rivers |
| play | Jijy |
| play | Big Blue Ball |