peter cusack: after being in holland for two years

Peter Cusack's debut long-player from 1977 is a peek into one of the most varied and experimental musical scrapbooks one is likely to hear. Infused with natural sounds and a healthy dose of musical abstraction, this record defies categorization. A solo album of guitar and environmental sounds; a montage filled with montages where references to and resonances of varied, often disparate soundworlds spill in every direction. The music manages to be both blatant and covert at the same time; it's clearly, acutely disjointed and polyvocal yet strangely out of focus in regard to intent. But that's the thing about montages: by having nothing lead causally, conventionally to the next, a radical, imaginary simultaneity occurs; one continues to experience the presence of each previous section (even though they're no longer audible) even as a new one abruptly presents itself -- all this without the actual physical interference that happens with visual collage. After Being In Holland For Two Years is presented here for the first time since its initial pressing as a green LP in a Nagaoka anti-static record sleeve contained within a full-color sleeve with obi strip and fold-up tri-panel inner sleeve. This edition includes extensive new liner notes by Toronto-based composer-performer Martin Arnold -- writing that complements the utterly singular notes Cusack provided for the initial release, which are reproduced here as well. Peter Cusack is an improvising guitarist, field recording artist, and occasional whistler. He founded Bead Records in 1974 to release the only LP by A Touch Of The Sun, his short-lived duo with clarinetist Simon Mayo, but the label went on to become a collectively run initiative that produced more than 30 albums of improvised music. The following year he was among those who founded both the journal Musics and the London Musicians Collective, both of which were important focal points for London's nascent improvising community. Cusack was a member of the eclectic freeform group Alterations with Steve Beresford, Terry Day, and David Toop, as well as their irreverent seaside covers spin-off The Promenaders. He formed significant musical relationships with instrument builder Max Eastley, multi-wind instrumentalist Clive Bell, vocalist Vivienne Corringham, and sampling trombone player and composer Nicholas Collins.