Peter Ulrich (Solo)
Taqaharu's Leaving / Evocation
In 1990 I recorded these two of my compositions at Woodbine Studios (extensively used for DCD albums) with John A Rivers engineering and producing. I self-released the tracks on my own Corner Stone Records label in double A-side 45rpm vinyl format, setting in motion an extremely slow-burning solo career. The sessions enlisted contributions from former DCD collaborators Ruth Watson (oboe on Taqaharu's Leaving) and John Singleton (trombone on Evocation), and additional vocals on both tracks from two old friends from the folk scene, Ange and Chuck Silverman.
Pathways and Dawns
During the Spiritchaser recording sessions (see under Dead Can Dance) in 1995, Brendan offered me the opportunity to record some of my own songs at Quivvy Church Studio with a view to gathering sufficient material for an album. With a huge input from him (arrangements, engineering, production and contributing some lovely additional parts), subsequent sessions spawned six songs. To these were added the earlier recordings of Taqaharu's Leaving and Evocation to create an eight track album which was released on the US Projekt label in 1999. Alternative Press magazine described it as "the album The Beatles might have made had they signed with 4AD instead of Capitol"!
Pathways and Dawns, Remastered
While the original 1999 release was CD format only, in 2020 I was approached by Russian label Infinite Fog with an offer to re-release Pathways and Dawns in high grade 12" vinyl format. The tracks were remastered by former Projekt label-mate Martin Bates (of Attrition), and former v23(4AD) artist Tim O'Donnell reimagined his original cover artwork for the larger 12" format.
Lammas Dance
Enter the Mysterium
Between 2002-2003 I wrote 10 new songs and recorded them at studios local to where I was living at the time in North West London. During this process, I discovered a biography of the Elizabethan academic and alchemist Dr John Dee. It set me on a path of basing each song on a mystery or belief, something like dipping into a contemporary equivalent of his extraordinary private library at his Mortlake home, and his 'Liber Mysteriorum'. The album was released in CD format on the New York-based City Canyons label, with an SACD format licensed for Europe through Music & Words (Netherlands).
In 2007 the song The Scryer and the Shewstone from Enter the Mysterium was licensed for inclusion in the first in a series of Dark Folk Britannica compilations on the Cold Spring label. The series won critical acclaim and in 2020 I was invited to contribute a new and exclusive song to Volume IV - the last in the series. As the album was scheduled to be released on Lammas (1 August), I wrote and recorded Lammas Dance - an imagination of a Lammas Festival celebration in a rural village. The album is called The Forme to the Fynisment Foldes Ful Selden.