As we reach the new moon of September, the North American tour is already five shows old and it’s time for the Dark-Side (Tchad Blake) and In-Side (Hans-Martin Buff) mixes of Love Can Heal to be released.
‘I was trying to create this sensual palette,’ says Peter, ‘and I think with the work that Buff’s been doing on the immersive mix, you’re getting this sense of being touched in many places and it should be a place just to drift off into. That’s my aim.’
In the past Peter has talked a bit about the role that music can play in helping us deal with certain situations that we might face in life, and Love Can Heal, he hopes, can have a part to play too; ‘I know I bang on about this emotional toolbox and how one of the roles of songs is the potential to change how you feel and change your mood according to what you’re listening to. Hopefully Love Can Heal has its place in this emotional toolbox.’
That role in hinted at strongly in the current live show, where Love Can Heal sits very deliberately, and effectively, next to the song Darkness in the set;
‘On the tour, we wanted to put Darkness and Love Can Heal together in the sense that Darkness is about going into the fears that maybe you have to re-open in order to get the air in and get them sterilized. Things that are left in the dark just get fertilized and grow. When exposed to daylight I think they get sorted. If you’ve got a sense of love being offered to you it is like a healing balm that can create an environment in which things can get better. So, in a way, those two songs do belong together.’
Love Can Heal comes with artwork from the artist Antony Micallef and his work ‘a small painting of what I think love looks like’. Micallef worked with Aardman on the accompanying video, here set to the Dark-Side mix.