An all-star Gang of Four and Andy Gill tribute album is on the way. Titled The Problem of Leisure: A Celebration of Andy Gill and Gang of Four, the collection will be a double album of songs that are reinterpreted and recorded by famous fans of the band.
The first single, “Natural’s Not In It,” hails from Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello and System Of A Down vocalist Serj Tankian. It will be released on Gill’s birthday, Jan. 1, 2021.
A complete track listing will be announced next month.
“Andy Gill was one of a handful of artists in history who changed the way guitars are played,” Morello said in a statement. “Gang of Four were just incendiary and completely groundbreaking with Andy’s confrontational, unnerving and sublime playing at the forefront. His jagged plague-disco raptor-attack industrial-funk deconstructed guitar anti-hero sonics and fierce poetic radical intellect were hugely influential to me.”
When Gang of Four co-founder and only lifelong member Gill died on Feb. 1, 2020, he’d conceived of an album to mark the 40th anniversary of the release of Entertainment! in 2019.
However, Gill’s widow, Catherine Mayer, says that the plan had changed by the time of Gill’s death after some artists involved expressed interest in tackling Gang of Four tracks from different albums and periods.
The album’s artwork was created by celebrated artist Damien Hirst, a long-term Gang of Four aficionado, who in a statement, called the band “mind-blowing and forward-thinking and filled with creative energy. It’s art.”
The artwork used is titled “Dog with Bone,’ and was picked by Gill himself. “I think he wanted this work for the cover because it’s new and unexpected and in your face and hard not to like,” Hirst states. “[The art piece] makes adults feel like children and Andy always wanted to celebrate that.”
Watch Gill’s widow talk about the project below.
The album is being released in a variety of different vinyl, CD and cassette formats featuring different versions of Hirst’s artwork.
The double-LP is available to preorder here.
