Musician's real life captured in his latest album in ongoing series
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The latest album in a sequence created by Ross-shire musician Peter Noble to reflect the Cromarty Firth – and his own life in and around it in sound and music, is out now and called The Stuff of Life.
It follows his previous albums – Walking North, In The Lee Of The Wind and Following The Water’s Flow, where each time Peter from Invergordon was inspired by a set of ideas to experiment with sound and his music to put together eight songs for each album.
The first was inspired by walking through the landscape in lockdown, the second by some special local trees and the sound of the wind through their branches and the third looked at water – from river to raindrops.
For The Stuff of Life, Peter looked at sounds from his own day-to-day life to inspire the songs which include Typing At My Desk, Talking To Dad, Dishes, Polly Drumming Outside, Trampoline and Driving Home.
One live performance last year at the Alness Community Garden Project of a selection of the tracks, where the audience as invited to join in and contribute – is going to be followed this year, Peter hopes, with another, which will again invite the public taking part.
Q Focusing on sounds from specific moments in your life wasn’t the original plan?
A My intention was to be in public spaces, I guess, things like supermarket and car parks and that might still come.
Q Describe some of the songs. Some of the things you have included are driving home, washing the dishes, throwing away your children’s first trampoline and coming home to hear your daughter Polly drumming?
A When I come home is usually the time of day my daughter is drumming. I used to live in another part of Invergordon and the street behind where I lived, there was always a drummer practising. I loved that you can’t bang the drums without everybody knowing! It was actually the most difficult song to get right. We recorded the drums in a studio and also redid the recording of me walking back and forth.
Q So much in these tracks is a common experience – like washing the dishes! I think washing dishes is a well-known idea in Zen that you do these things as service and I think you talk about that in the track?
A I think the first one, once I got the idea that I was going to make it more personal, was Trampoline where I am throwing out the children’s trampoline. It was kind of ridiculous, but at the same time this is something that will only happen once. I will only once throw out my children’s first trampoline. So rather than take a picture of it, well I did that, but I recorded the sound and then thought ‘I can see that kind of working in a song’. They are kind of mundane, but in a way that’s the point. They are focusing in on very small moments. And trying to making them different and expand them in some respects.
Q Talking To Dad has your dad talking to your family – but you manage to weave the really personal into all these songs?
A About 15 or 16 years ago I was in Australia for a year. I worked on a building site and I wrote a song about working on a building site with those guys and some of the experiences we had and I recorded it on the building site. I listened to it again and I thought I was back there! I could remember almost what we had for lunch, the biscuits you can only get in Australia. I can remember the view from the window and that song.
Part of the intention with this album was a personal capturing of things that are transient, these moments I believe that actually, if I hear those songs again, I go back to them.
That is what I have noticed about the other work like this that I have done.
If I am in the place – if I walk past one of the trees or I go to the body of water, I remember being there at that time. I think it is personal because of that.
With my children, everything is a stage. But you are aware at some point that that ends.
At the end of the last Winnie The Pooh book, there’s a moment where he knows it is over and he says ‘Somewhere in the world there is a bear and a boy still playing’. This line is in my song Somewhere. In the song there are the sounds as we play with Lego and I help my daughter with her homework in the background.
It’s a moment captured in my life. And hopefully, it is not just self-indulgent, but they are universal experiences, so can resonate with other people.
Q You end the album with the track Driving Home? You describe even knowing the bumps in the road on your way home?
A We drove to Wales for a weekend wedding at one point with five of us in the car – another moment with the children that age that won’t happen again. The shape of the road we don’t notice. but it is so much part of the way we live.
Q You are planning on doing another live performance this year with the audience taking part?
A Yes, I have managed to get a Creative Scotland grant to do a series of experimental performances with my environmental music, leading to a public performance in September which I’m really looking forward to too.
The Stuff Of Life is on Spotify and available on peternoble.bandcamp.com
