The servers for Peter Gabriel's record labels have been stolen from his ISP, leaving the artist without an online presence.

Gabriel was one of the first musicians to recognise the power of the internet in distributing music, and had made sure that his Real World and World of Music, Arts and Dance (Womad) organisations were online early.

But a raid on his internet service provider has left the label without an internet presence, according to the singer.

"The majority of Real World, Peter Gabriel and Womad web services are currently offline," Gabriel said on his website.

"Our servers were stolen from our ISP's data centre on Sunday night. We are working to restore normal service as soon as possible."

It is unknown whether the theft was a targeted attack or just another example of thieves grabbing high value servers for resale.