Back in February, I was contacted by someone working on the New Blood tour for Peter Gabriel. They were looking for artists to contribute to the visuals for one of the songs off the new album, which is all covers of other bands and it is my understanding the covered bands would then do a cover of a Peter Gabriel song.

Aside from the near all-cover set, the other curious thing about this tour is he performed without the aid of drums or guitar. It is him, a conductor, and a backing orchestra.

Photograph by Robert Sinclair.

I was assigned the cover of Radiohead’s ‘Street Spirit’. And I had a little over two weeks. Because the short deadline, I decided to do something with reaction diffusion. I love reaction diffusion. RD is my new additive blending. You are probably familiar with RD from the amazing 3D type piece by Karsten Schmidt (Toxi).

Since PG was performing with an orchestra, who rehearses to a click track, I was able to get a recording of the song more or less as it would be played live. This allowed me to code in a few tone changes and transitions manually so the piece would have some relevance and variety throughout the length of the song.

Photograph by York Tillyer.

While PG sings, an ominous and slightly off-putting reaction diffusion pattern spreads and pulses across the background. When he reaches the climax of the song and the key changes to hope, the diffusion dissipates and is engulfed by a bright light.

Photograph by Robert Sinclair.

Many thanks to the Georgina Sinclair, Rob Sinclair, and Peter Gabriel.