petergabriel.com

It is with enormous sadness that we announce the death of Martyn Bennett after a long struggle against cancer. Martyn died in Edinburgh on Sunday 30 January. He has left behind an extraordinary and seminal body of work - influential recordings and the memory outstanding live performances. His last album 'Grit' is an image of a struggle and endurance - both of the singers featured and of Martyn himself.

"On various levels this is an extraordinary album. The charismatic fiddler/bagpiper/dance innovator has endured an horrendous couple of years battling with cancer, and Grit - born of pain, passion, emotion and a very real sense of roots - is the immense response. Paradoxically it's tender yet explosive; ancient and futuristic; beautiful yet violent; scarred yet triumphant; quietly reflective yet full-on dance.... Remarkable stuff." ( fRoots Magazine)

Anyone wishing to pass on their condolences to Martyn's loved ones can do so by mailing webmaster@realworldrecords.com and we will pass them on.

"During the past few days here, we've been able to do as much hustling for our cause as we probably will be able to achieve during the rest of the year." Peter Gabriel

Being a legendary rock star tends to make things a tad easier. It helps to open doors and gives you access to the media.

So if you are a human rights organisation like Witness, it obviously helps to have been founded by Peter Gabriel - and be taken along to an event like the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Read about Peter's visit to Davos to campaign for Witness

Greeting Lunatics, I hope 2005 is surpassing your expectations. If it's not, have no fear January the 24th is statistically (at least in the UK) the low point of the year, and it's now behind us.

As a 'Kendal Mint Cake' like boost on the climb up the often slippery annual slope, we bring you the timely message of "Don't Give Up" once again in the remixed form that emanates from our Swiss friends Engelspost.

If you haven't yet heard the new Dan Lanois and Richard Chappell 5.1 mixes to be found on Peter's new DVD "PLAY" you can now sample the all enveloping delights by simply sucking them through the ether. All you need is some serious hardware that will run the latest Windows Media software and a big fat pipe to the Internet.

The following video/5.1 streams are available in 200k and 400K forms
The Barry Williams Show
Digging in the Dirt
Father Son
Shock the Monkey
Sledgehammer

On January 24, 2005 at 3:00 PM U.S. Pacific Time / 6:00 PM Eastern Time / 11:00 PM UK Time, Peter will be participating in a live online chat with MSN.

I've added the link provided below, but sadly in the UK you get redirected to a page saying 'MSN has decided to no longer offer MSN Chat in the UK". Apparently this is to save our delicate British sensabilities from various forms of "abuse of the Internet" ...good luck to the rest of you, but be carefull!

I've briefly logged in to bring you news of a Full Moon update, the website never sleeps!

I must say I was dubious that a remix of 'I Grieve' was the right thing for this season of festivities, but events have unfortunately conspired to make it a rather more appropriate choice. Our thoughts are very much with those around the world affected by today's earthquake, for those of us more fortunate, The Full Moon Club would like to offers an Engelspost remix of 'I Grieve' as this months bounty.

Since the release of the PLAY DVD we have become aware of an issue with the DTS soundtrack on the latest generation of surround amplifiers.

PLAY is the first disc produced using a new DTS encoder and it seems that the version we used has set a flag within the DTS audio stream that can cause a 30db reduction in volume.

We have only experienced the issue on a Denon AVR-3805 amplifier (kindly lent to us by Denon UK), although it may be more widespread as new audio decoder chips reach the consumer market in other products. Reading through our DVD forum, our experience would tie in with the comments of people on the boards . A 30db volume reduction is very noticeable, so the DTS audio heard through these amplifiers is going to be both disappointing, and give a you big shock if you turn it up and then flip back to one of the other audio tracks, or navigate back to a menu.

Only the latest amplifiers are reading the 'Dialogue Normalization" setting in the DTS audio which is causing the volume reduction. Other amplifiers are simply ignoring this information, so during the product development and testing, and to most consumers the DTS was and still is the best sounding audio on the disc.

We are currently working with DTS, Warner Vision and Denon to find a solution, and will keep you posted.

Please let us know if you have experienced this problem on any other equipment.

In the kind of about-face in the light of changing circumstance that could be critisized at election time as 'weak', Tina has extended her competition deadline. Entries will now be accepted until Thursday 16 December.

In an attempt to justify the move a spokesperson close to Tina said "Some fans have written in to say that they had difficulty in completing it at short notice" adding that Play was not released until 23 Nov in Canada.

I've just had an email from Gillian Caldwell, the Executive Director of Witness and thougt we'd pass on the information......

"I am tremendously proud to announce the launch of Witness to Truth: A Video Report and Recommendations from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Sierra Leone at www.witness.org. As many of you will recall, I traveled to Sierra Leone with my family in November of last year to produce this film on behalf of the TRC, and it was embargoed until the TRC delivered its written report and film to the President of Sierra Leone last month.

"Witness to Truth," marks the first time that video has been used by a TRC to raise public awareness of its findings and recommendations. It highlights the key causes and consequences of the war, and encourages civil society in Sierra Leone and beyond to hold the government accountable for implementing the binding recommendations issued by the TRC.

For those of you in the New York area, I will participate in a screening and panel discussion of "Witness to Truth" on Friday December 10th, International Human Rights Day, at NYU's School of Law, Tishman Auditorium, Vanderbilt Hall, 40 Washington Square South, from 6:30 - 8pm. The event is free and open to the public."

As you may have heard Sizer Barker joined Tom Robinson for his Evening Sequence show on BBC Radio 6 Music last night and performed exclusive session tracks. Don't worry if you missed it though as you can still listen via Real Player and the BBC's archived broadcast, but hurry, it'll only be online for a week!

By our calculations and the glare of the large white body hanging over the studios this evening, tonight sees that extraordinary event , a Full Moon. I realise some of you have been celebrating the Full Moon on the forums since Wednesday, and I'd like to claim we are as ever fashionably late, but the pictures below are our proof - today's the day.

In celebration of these lunar happenings we offer you a new remix of Rhythm of The Heat by Engelspost - A link to the QuickTime audio is as you would expect to be found on the Moon Club video page.

Noticing the news reports on WOMADshop's greatly reduced price for the lush gatefold double LP version of Adrian Sherwoods Never Trust A Hippy I decided it was time to acquire a copy. I enjoyed it so much; the sound reverberating into the Wiltshire countryside late into the night, that I decided to show you what you're missing if you fail to get hold of a copy.

Be amongst the first to see this exclusive film of the entire first side of album - that's nearly 20 minutes of immersive audio visual entertainment.

You need QuickTime and a broadband connection, then sit back marvel at the deep low end of this 120g pressing, the richness of err analogue sound?

webmaster@realworld.co.uk

There we were thinking you didn't care to give us your thoughts, but it turns out it may just be that your having to experience the site through Microsoft Internet Explorer on the PC and it didn't like our code. Appolagies for this.

The problem is now fixed, so if you have seen the DVD why not post a review, we want to know what you think. If you come across any other features of the site that don't work for you, let us know.

WOMADshop now have two PG bundles on offer, both from £50 delivered

Bundle 1
Still Growing Up Tour 2004 Duffel Bag containing:
Poster (zorb ball),
White T shirt,
Programme,
CD Holder
Tour Cap.

Bundle 2
Still Growing Up Tour Duffel bag to include:

Poster,
Navy long sleeve T shirt
Programme,
Anna Gabriel DVD 'Growing Up On Tour, A Family Portrait'
and Melanie Gabriel CD.

To coincide with the release of PLAY in the USA today Peter is doing a series of radio interviews. We are not sure if the broadcast time will be the same as the interview time, or how/where you can tune into the broadcasts, but here is the information we have. Time is EST

9:00 VH1 Syndicated
9:15 WAXQ NY
9.30 WKQX Chicago
10.00 KLOS L.A
10.15 ABC radio Syndicated
10.30 Westwood Syndicated
10.45 Maverick Syndicated.