He is best known as a member of the avant garde musical quartet, Alterations (1978–1986; with Steve Beresford, David Toop, and Terry Day),[1] and the creator of field and wildlife recording-based albums including:
Where Is the Green Parrot? (1999) with tracks like "Toy Shop (Two Small Boys Go Shopping)" and "Siren", which are just as advertised.
Day for Night (2000), with Max Eastley. This features "duets" between Eastley's kinetic sculpture and Cusack's field recordings.
Baikal Ice (2003), featuring tracks like "Banging Holes In Ice" and "Floating Icicles Rocked By Waves" and "Falling In".
Cusack has been involved in a wide range of projects throughout his career. Several of his pieces have been reviewed in Leonardo Music Journal, the annual music Journal published by MIT Press. He has also curated an album for Leonardo Music Journal.
Cusack is particularly interested in environmental sound and acoustic ecology. He has examined the sound properties of areas such as Lake Baikal, Siberia, and the Azerbaijan oil fields, and is interested in how sounds change as people migrate and as technology changes.
In 1998, Cusack started the "Your Favorite London Sound" project. The goal is to find out what London noises are found appealing by people who live in London.[2] This was so popular that it has been repeated in Chicago, Beijing, and other cities. He is involved in the "Sound & The City" art project using sounds from Beijing in October 2005.
Cusack's Sounds From Dangerous Places is a project to collect sounds from sites which have sustained major environmental damage. Sites that Cusack is working on include Chernobyl, the Azerbaijan oil fields, and areas around controversial dams on the Tigris and Euphrates river systems in south east Turkey.
Cusack's performances are a central part of the book Haunted Weather: Music, Silence, and Memory (Toop, 2004) by his old collaborator and respected music critic and author, David Toop. Toop investigates the use of environmental sound and electronic instruments in experimental music in his book.
Other performances
With clarinetist Simon Mayo, he formed the duo known as "A Touch of the Sun". His first "major" recording was part of Fred Frith's 1974 record, "Guitar Solos".
He was one of the first to play the bouzouki in England, which gained him the respect of London's musical avant garde.
A live performance with Nicolas Collins was released as "A Host, of Golden Daffodils" in 1999.
Activities related to music
He co-founded an artist-owned record label called "Bead Records" which has released many previously unavailable pieces in 1972. It had released more than 30 albums, as of 2007.
Cusack produces the monthly radio program "Vermilion Sounds" with Isobel Clouter. Vermilion Sounds explores environmental sounds and is broadcast by Resonance FM in London. John Levack Drever, writing in Soundscape, comments:
Of significant note is the work of Peter Cusack and Isobel Clouter (from the British Library Sound Archive who we now welcome onto the UKISC Management Committee), who have done a sterling job producing Vermilion Sounds—a weekly radio show for Resonance FM...[3]
Other projects
Soundlines: City of London Festival educational project on music and environmental sound in East London schools (April to November 2003).
Baku, 5 Quarters at the University of Baku, Azerbaijan. This was a collaboration with Swiss video artist Ursula Biemann in 2004.
Urban Grime, exhibition at the Museum of London Sept 2003 to Jan 2004
Send+Receive Festival performance & workshops, Winnipeg, Canada 2004:
LMC Guitar Festival performances, Museum of Garden History, London 2004
Frère Jacques et autres pièces à Francis: Expositions. 1997. Saint-Fons, with Ron Haselden, a British artist living in the French town of Brizard, in Brittany. This was a well-known interactive multimedia piece featuring the song Frère Jacques.[4]
Selected recordings
Your Favourite London Sounds 1998–2001, Peter Cusack, Resonance (2002)
Ghosts & Monsters: Technology & Personality in Contemporary Music, Composer: Robert Ashley, Frieder Butzmann, John Cage, Cornelius Cardew, Henning Christiansen, et al., Conductor: Christian von Borries, Guy Protheroe, Performers: Peter Cusack, Margaret Leng Tan, Jerry Hunt, Shelley Hirsch, Berliner Philharmoniker, Emf Media (2 May 2000) includes an extract from a Host, of Golden Daffodils – Nicolas Collins, Peter Cusack
Haunted Weather, assorted artists, Staubgold Germany, 25 May 2004, includes "Flight Path Trace" by Peter Cusack (companion CD to Ghosts and Monsters: Technology and Personality in Contemporary Music, Leonardo Music Journal 8 (1998), Leonardo / MIT Press, 1998)
Not Necessarily "English Music": A collection of experimental music from Great Britain, 1960–1977, curated by David Toop, Leonard Music Journal CD Series Volume 11, includes Geese recorded in 1974 by Peter Cusack and Simon Mayo (A Touch of the Sun), the companion CD to 2001 Volume of Leonardo Music Journal, MIT Press, 2001.
Nightjars and Roe Deer, and Squabble (both from CD to Musicworks #59, Peter Cusack) included in Songs Soaring, (René van Peer, catalogue for festival Whistling in the Dark/Pfeifen in Walde, organised by Matthias Osterwold and Nicolas Collins in Podewil, Berlin (Germany), 9 to 18 September 1994, organised by Matthias Osterwold and Nicolas Collins in Podewil, Berlin (Germany), 9 to 18 September 1994, pub. by Volker Straebel and Matthias Osterwold, in association with Nicolas Collins, Valerian Maly and Elke Moltrecht. Distribution through Podewil and Maly Verlag, 1994.)
TECHNO MIT STÖRUNGEN, an album recorded at festival "music unlimited" at Alter Schlachthof Wels, Austria, 11 November 1995. The album features Peter Cusack playing "bousouki & interactive birds"
"Ghosts and Monsters": Contributors' Notes", Alexander Abramovitch Krejn, Christian von Borries, John Cage, Andrew Culver, John Tilbury, Paul de Marinis, Robert Ashley, Henning Christiansen, Alvin Lucier, Peter Cusack, Shelley Hirsch, Jerry Hunt, Michael Schell, Frieder Butzmann, Michael Snow, Leonardo Music Journal, Vol. 8, Ghosts and Monsters: Technology and Personality in Contemporary Music (1998), pp. 64–74, MIT Press, 1998.
