Based in London, Peter Cusack is a sound artist, musician and phonographer especially focused on environmental sound and acoustic ecology. His interests range from community arts, to how sounds affect our sense of place, and how they change as people migrate and technologies develop. Cusack’s current project Sounds from Dangerous Places examines the soundscapes of sites of major environmental damage, for example, Chernobyl and the Azerbaijan oil fields. He has also studied the sound properties of areas such as Lake Baikal, Siberia, and controversial dams on the Tigris and Euphrates river systems in south east Turkey. He writes:

Recent travels have brought me into contact with some difficult and potentially dangerous places … Some are areas where extreme and hostile conditions have been created, in others the danger has been hidden or absorbed into the local economy… [More here and here. You can listen to an interview about the project on BBC Radio here.]

[Photography: Anne-Berit Schultz, Autumn Leaves] Peter Cusack initiated the Your Favourite London Sound project that aims to discover what Londoners find positive in their city’s soundscape. His performances are central to Haunted Weather: Music, Silence, and Memory (2004), written by former collaborator and respected music critic, David Toop. More recently, Cusack was interviewed for Autumn Leaves, a book that seeks to draw together a number of different perspectives on how the environment is made audible through sound.

Cusack curated Interpreting the Soundscape for Leonardo Music Journal Volume 16 (2006). It includes contributions by Tonya Wimmer, Andrea Polli and Joe Gilmore, Jacob Kirkegaard, Chris Watson, Rafal Flejter, Chris DeLaurenti, Christina Kubisch, Charles Stankievech, Sonic Postcards, Yannick Dauby and Pascal Battus.

Cusack is a member of CRiSAP (Creative Research in Sound Art & Performance), and a research staff member and founding member of the London College of Communication in the University of the Arts London. He was recently appointed research fellow on the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council’s multidisciplinary The Positive Soundscape Project: A re-evaluation of environmental sound with Mags Adams, Angus Carlyle, Bill Davies, Ken Hume, Paul Jennings, and Chris Plack. Cusack was a founding member and director of the London Musicians’ Collective. He is perhaps best-known as a member of the avant guard musical quartet, “Alterations” (1978-1986; with Steve Beresford, David Toop, and Terry Day).