Peter Ulrich (born 29 August 1958 in Perivale, England) is a multi-instrumentalist songwriter and recording artist.
Contents |
He was educated at Vaughan School in West Harrow, Cannon Lane School in Pinner, The John Lyon School in Harrow, and Hatfield Polytechnic from which he graduated in Humanities.
A self-taught drummer, he began playing in blues/soul band Mischief on the East London pub and club circuit in the early 1980s.
In 1982 he met Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard in London and joined Dead Can Dance on drums and percussion, and in 1983 was one of the members of DCD to sign to the 4AD label.[1][2]
He played on DCD's eponymous first album, the Garden of the Arcane Delights EP, the albums Within the Realm of a Dying Sun and Spiritchaser,[3] and the promo single "Sambatiki", and on both sessions recorded for the BBC Radio 1 John Peel Show, as well as playing virtually all live dates with DCD from 1983 to 1990.
During the 1980s Ulrich also contributed a percussion piece called "At First, and Then" to the This Mortal Coil album Filigree and Shadow,[1][3] and made cameo appearances on albums by Wolfgang Press and Pieter Nooten & Michael Brook. In 1990 he released his first solo recording - a double A-sided 12" vinyl single featuring his songs "Taqaharu's Leaving" and "Evocation" which has since become a rare collector's item.
His first solo album - Pathways and Dawns - which was largely arranged, recorded and produced by Brendan Perry at DCD's studio in Ireland,[4] was released on the Projekt label in 1999 and was dubbed 'the album the Beatles might have made had they signed with 4AD instead of Capitol' by Alternative Press.
His second solo album, Enter The Mysterium, was released in 2005 on City Canyons Records (licensed by Music and Words in Europe). The song "The Scryer and the Shewstone" from the album was featured on John Barleycorn Reborn, a highly acclaimed album of dark British folk music released on Cold Spring Records in 2007.
In 2009 Ulrich made a guest appearance, together with Brendan Perry, on the Piano Magic album Ovations playing percussion and hammered dulcimer.
Through 2008-2011 he has been working on a collaboration project of City Canyons with label head Trebor Lloyd and fellow artists including Sara Wendt, David Steele, Anemo and Jen Elliott, plus international guest artists including Saskia Dommisse of Poets to their Beloved, which has so far produced a series of digital single releases and will culminate in a full album.
Ulrich continues to be heavily influenced by folk, world and early musics, and draws many elements of these into his distinctive style of songwriting and arranging.