PETER GABRIEL * 1991 * THE REAL WORLD RECORDING WEEK (Video)

PETER GABRIEL * 1991 * THE REAL WORLD RECORDING WEEK (Video) For one week in the summer of 1991, some of the world’s finest musicians and record producers came together in the Wiltshire valley which houses Real World Studios, to live, work and play in a stimulating, creative environment, quite unlike anything ever previously attempted. “I always imagined Real World would be like it has been this week.” Peter Gabriel, tired but elated, was seated at a table in the converted barn known, for just one week in the summer of 1991, as Lulu’s Café. “It’s a meeting place where musicians and technologists can drop in and work together, without the barriers and hassles of the music business.” Seventy-five musicians from twenty countries gathered during the third week of a blazing August. Some, like Remmy Ongala, The Terem Quartet, and The Holmes Brothers planned to record entire albums. Others, like experimental UK-based techno-dance outfit The Grid, Chinese flute virtuoso Guo Yue and stunning ex-Monsoon vocalist Sheila Chandra were content to be there simply to participate in the creation of previously unimagined collaborative musics. A Québécois acoustic folk-dance group, La Bottine Souriante (The Smiling Half-Boot), happily performed on the lawn because the organisers had run out of studio space. Internationally renowned producers Phil Ramone, Rupert Hine and Pól Brennan agreed to be involved, not because Real World offered them vast fees, but because the project itself stimulated their imaginations. Established rock artists such as Sinéad O’Connor, Van Morrison, Karl Wallinger of World Party and Jah Wobble formerly of PIL were similarly drawn by the sheer audacity and excitement of the venture. By the end of the Week there were even two published poets, Neil Sparks and Jean Binta Breeze, on hand to contribute lyric ideas to fit some of the extraordinary music which evolved. Plans for a Recording Week had developed out of the need to book artists touring with WOMAD into Real World Studios to record albums over two or three days in the summer. Because the studio was so highly regarded, attracting artists like Tears For Fears and New Order, it was often occupied and unavailable for months at a time. One possible solution was carefully to plan artists’ touring schedules during the WOMAD summer touring season, then block in a week of studio time so that recording could take place in one concentrated period. Continuing in the spirit of WOMAD festivals, performance would be a strong theme of the Week, with many of the artists recording what would be essentially ‘live in the studio’ albums. The Recording Week would also be a way of capturing some of the best music which often happened spontaneously backstage, or after-hours at the festivals when the musicians came together and played. These sessions had spawned some curious and wonderful combinations— it would be no surprise, for example, to find a North African oud player jamming with a South American pan piper. The timing of the Week was to be crucial. The artists would have been touring for almost two months, performing at the international WOMAD events, and would have already begun to forge musical links. The aim of Recording Week was to create the best conditions to record these dialogues in an unforced and unpretentious way. The idea was to produce about seven albums, five by individual artists and at least two compilations of collaborative work. The entire event, culminating in a live Gala Concert for the villagers of Box, would be filmed and recorded for international television and radio. The bulk of the individual albums were realised, at the rate of virtually one each day, in Real World’s big oak-floored Wood Room studio, given a nightclub atmosphere by draping the walls with brightly painted banners. The performers played on ground level, while an audience of other musicians, technicians, friends, babies and the occasional dog, hunkered down on cushions or perched on the catwalks above. On Sunday night, Colombia’s Totó la Momposina and her battery of drummers and dancers brought the studio audience to its feet with a show that combined superb control with wild abandon. Pounding on drums made from hollow tree trunks, shaking cans filled with beans and plucking bass notes from a hiant m’bira made from a packing case, the drummers laid down a poly-rhythmic bed over which Totó’s voice seemed to soar. Monday night’s Holmes Brothers session felt like a spontaneous gospel hoedown. “We gon’ do a li’l too that hits ya right where ya live,” growled vocalist Wendell to the crowded room as the band launched into ‘I Want Jesus to Walk With Me’. Not the heat, not the cramped conditions, not even the presence of two bustling camera crews could dispel the air of joyful bonhomie.

Added 17 Jul 2026