i/o

I/O (typeset as i/o) is the tenth studio album by English rock musician Peter Gabriel, released on 1 December 2023 through Real World Records. It is Gabriel's first album of new original material in over 21 years since Up (2002), marking the longest gap between two studio albums in his solo career. I/O features 12 tracks, each with two different mixes labeled the "Bright-Side Mix" and "Dark-Side Mix". I/O is also Gabriel's longest studio album, with both mixes each clocking in at over 68 minutes and the total project lasting over two hours.
I/O had been in the works for nearly three decades (27 years and eight months), with its initial production dating back to April 1995, at around the same time Gabriel began recording Up. He began planning the follow-up to Up as early as 2000 and had originally intended to release it in 2004, but the album was repeatedly delayed, reworked and re-recorded at seven recording studios (and one arena during soundchecks while on tour with Sting in 2016) before its completion in December 2022. This was due to Gabriel focusing on other projects such as his two orchestral albums Scratch My Back (2010) and New Blood (2011), which contained covers of songs by other artists and rearrangements of his older material, respectively.
Beginning in January 2023, Gabriel released a new single every full moon, with its alternate mix released on the following new moon, eventually culminating in the album's release at the end of the year; this replicates the 2010 double-sided single releases in promotion of And I'll Scratch Yours (2013). He has stated that he will release more songs in this format following the album's release. I/O received positive reviews from music critics, with praise being particularly directed towards Gabriel's vocals and songwriting.
Background
For Up, Gabriel reportedly had over 130 songs in various stages, of which ten were selected for the album. He said that a follow-up album from this material, tentatively titled I/O (also an early name for Up), was intended to be completed by 2004. However, the Growing Up and Still Growing Up tours over the next three years, as well as Gabriel starting new projects entirely, pushed this date far ahead. In 2005, Gabriel reportedly had a pool of 150 songs, which he had been working on with engineer Richard Chappell and percussionist Ged Lynch. Gabriel said he was "trying to write principally about birth and death, with the sex in the middle." In the interview, he discussed the idea of touring before recording and releasing the album. Gabriel soon shifted focus towards 2010's Scratch My Back and 2011's New Blood.
In a 2013 interview with Rolling Stone, Gabriel mentioned that he had twenty songs in the works, saying "It probably hasn't moved nearly as much as I would have liked to in the intervening time. The songs are still there, but some of them I would redo now and there's some new stuff as well." During the Back to Front Tour, Gabriel performed a song entitled "Daddy Long Legs" that would eventually become the third single from i/o, "Playing for Time". Throughout 2014 and 2015, Gabriel posted consistently on social media about working on the new album alongside Chappell and Lynch. Gabriel stated in a 2014 interview that he was working on more upbeat material because "it's very easy for me to fall into some moody stuff." He also revealed that he was working on songs called "Here Comes Love" and "In and Out." The latter eventually became the album's title track, "I/O". He debuted the song "What Lies Ahead" during a live show in Italy. On the 2016 Rock Paper Scissors tour with Sting, he performed the song "Love Can Heal", and additionally rehearsed new songs "Rock Paper Scissors" and "Radio Everyone".
After a break from music for a few years in order to care for his then-ill wife, Gabriel returned to work on the album in 2019. Gabriel said he was working on about 50 ideas, with the intention of finishing the songs by the end of the year. In 2020, Gabriel mentioned a song about aging called "So Much". In July, he said that he had been "slowed down quite a lot by lockdown" but that he had "enough songs that I like to make a record I'm proud of."