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Peter Cusack

Peter Cusack is an improvising guitarist, field recording artist and occasional whistler. He founded Bead Records in 1974 to release the only LP by Touch Of The Sun – his shortlived duo with clarinetist Simon Mayo, but the label went on to become a collectively run initiative that produced more than 30 albums of improvised music. Cusack was a member of the eclectic freeform group Alterations with Steve Beresford, Terry Day and David Toop, as well as their irreverent seaside covers spin-off The Promenaders. He formed significant musical relationships with instrument builder Max Eastley, multi-wind instrumentalist Clive Bell, vocalist Vivienne Corringham and sampling trombone player and composer Nicholas Collins.

Peter Cusack is an improvising guitarist, field recording artist and occasional whistler. He founded Bead Records in 1974 to release the only LP by Touch Of The Sun – his shortlived duo with clarinetist Simon Mayo, but the label went on to become a collectively run initiative that produced more than 30 albums of improvised music. Cusack was a member of the eclectic freeform group Alterations with Steve Beresford, Terry Day and David Toop, as well as their irreverent seaside covers spin-off The Promenaders. He formed significant musical relationships with instrument builder Max Eastley, multi-wind instrumentalist Clive Bell, vocalist Vivienne Corringham and sampling trombone player and composer Nicholas Collins.

Sounds From Dangerous Places
Two CDs and a 90 page hardback book with photos, info and interviews from audio documenter and experimenter Peter Cusak, recording in Chernobyl, The Caspian Oilfields, and various dangerous locations in the UK. The Chernobyl disaster of 26th April 1986, was the realization of all our fears of the nuclear industry, leading many countries to suspend their nuclear power programmes. Two and a half decades later, nuclear power is again reasserting itself, presented by governments and the industry as …
Alterations
Tip! *In process of stocking* Never released before recordings from Logos Foundation live sessions at Logos Foundation, Gent, Belgium on January 3, 1981. "The music is free-improvisation -- that is we make our music co-operatively while playing: by listening, reacting, throwing in new ideas, not by following preplanned schemes. At its simplest the group's intention can be said to be to play together as well as possible and to enjoy ourselves while doing so. We are very interested in the result a…
Alterations Live
*In process of stocking. 2022 stock* "Alterations on record is a bit like listening to the soundtrack to a movie without the picture show. Essential to their 'performance' was the aspect that making music can be both visually & musically entertaining; which hints at the notion of entertainment as a valid musical form - and suggests that 'High Art' can be born from "playing for laughs" - (which the Alterations perfected to such a fine art as to become 'flavour of the month' for a year or two). At…
Berlin Sonic Places – A Brief Guide
Peter Cusack's Berlin Sonic Places: A Brief Guide is an appreciation of, and an enquiry into, Berlin“s sounds and soundscapes in all their moods of noise and quiet. It asks why does Berlin sound the way it does and what makes one neighbourhood sonically different from another. It pays attention to the aural character of particular buildings, streets, squares and green spaces, listens to the city“s public transport system and celebrates the importance of nature to Berlin“s acoustic environment. B…
Aral Sea Stories
**Edition of 200 copies** Peter Cusack made three trips to the Aral Sea in Kazakhstan and one to the Naryn River in Kyrgyzstan to make field recordings, take photographs, talk to people and try and gain insights into the impacts of water use and abuse on the environment and people of the region. The audio tracks, photographs and notes on this album are the result of these visits. Aral Sea Stories explores the question, “What can we learn of water uses and abuses by listening to their sounds?” It…
Where is the Green Parrot?
Welcome release from this subtle but complex composer-performer-instrument designer. More than musical, these are dramatic constructions with environmental sound, birdsong, conversation, narrative... the guitar shop section of "two small boys go shopping" is a masterpiece.. A record hard to describe since it deftly side-steps all the usual categories.
After Being In Holland For Two Years
The music you are about to hear defies categorisation. Peter Cusack’s debut long player from 1977 is a peak into one of the most varied and experimental musical scrapbooks you are likely to hear. Infused with natural sounds and a healthy dose of musical abstraction, it is difficult to pigeonhole this record into any genre. It is the kind of record you wished existed while nothing really came close to the mark. A solo album of guitar and environmental sounds, a montage filled with montages where …
Favourite Sounds of Berlin
Site recordings from Berlin by audio explorer Peter Cusack, documenting evocative locations throughout the city based on an inquiry into Berlin resident's favorite sounds, with a booklet detailing the 31 recordings and the scope of the project
Day for night
This CD represents a 25-year collaboration between renowned British avant-garde improviser Peter Cusack and instrument builder and sculptor Max Eastley. Cusack and Eastley have made these short episodes together between busy careers recording experimental music alongside artists such as Nicolas Collins, Steve Beresford, and David Toop). With numerous releases on ReR and Incus, the two musicians are mainstays of the British improvised music world, and Eastley is particularly prominent for his wor…
A host, of golden daffodils
On this live recording from 1996, performed at the STEIM, Amsterdam and the 'Museum für Gegenwart', Berlin, Englishman Peter Cusack, best known for his electro-acoustic works and his improvisational music, has teamed up with the American composer-musician Nicolas Collins. Peter Cusack, who uses guitar, bouzouki, samplers and electronics on this CD, has worked with artists as various as Evan Parker, Jon Rose, Chris Cutler, David Toop and Max Eastley. Nicolas Collins studied with Alvin Lucier and …
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