Peter Cusack (musician) - Selected Reviews

Selected Reviews

• Voila Enough! 1979-1981

Culled from performances in Bracknell, Tilburg, and Berlin between 1979 and 1981, Voila Enough! is a snapshot of a chaotic and intensely creative quartet featuring Peter Cusack, Terry Day, David Toop, and Steve Beresford (principally on guitar, percussion, flutes, and piano, respectively, but also a bewildering number of instruments, conventional and unconventional)...Alterations' music redefines itself from moment to moment, both in terms of its overall structure and the material used to build it. Nearly a quarter of a century on, its power to captivate, infuriate, and have you falling off your chair in hysterics is entirely undimmed. (Dan Warburton, Allmusic)

• Baikal Ice

...perhaps his most lyrical work: a documentary recording of nature and life by the lake at the end of winter, when the ice begins to melt. (Piero Scaruffi, 2003)

You can hear the vast spaces, the majesty of the frozen lake, and the 'pittoresque' of the location through the wind, bird, and human sounds, but also through the acoustical features of the recordings. We can hear unusual bird songs, children playing with an outdoor PA system, Cusack in his daily routine (mediated by his very dry sense of humor). The recordings are crystal clear and ... create their own stories and convey a sense of here and now...these recordings disclose a unique soundworld. This reviewer would not be surprised if a compilation album of remixes/reworkings based on these recordings surfaced soon. (emphasis added; François Couture, Allmusic)

• Where is the Green Parrot?

"...Cusack's field recordings are blended and sequenced against a light tracery of studio playing. Two main sections bring a structural cohesion to this grainy collection of 'pieces, recordings and in-betweens'...", (The Wire, 7/00, p.64)

• 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. With numerous releases on ReR and Incus, the two musicians are mainstays of the British improvised music world...The duo creates intriguing delicate compositions with these instruments...."(Skip Jansen, Allmusic)

• Your Favourite London Sounds

A new disc from the tireless London Musicians’ Collective embarks on a sonic journey in their own city, asking Londoners, "What is your favorite London sound and why?" They received hundreds of responses, and musician Peter Cusack took it upon himself to hunt down and record those sounds, 40 of which appear here.(Kenneth Goldsmith, New York Press, Vol 15, Issue 9, February 26, 2002)