Another version of this interview can be found in Lisa's new book, MIND & MOTIVATION: The Spirit of Success.

Fans of cult musicians Dead Can Dance and This Mortal Coil will be familiar with Peter Ulrich as the percussionist for the former and a contributor to the latter. A multi-talented composer and musician in his own right, Peter’s solo albums reflect a diversity of cultural and musical influences. Although some tracks point to an ongoing affinity with Dead Can Dance, there is also a combination of genres which are unique to Peter and mark him out as an adventurous musician with a gift for creating an intriguing array of moods and themes.

His first album, Pathways and Dawns (Projekt), garnered reviews which compare him favourably with Brian Eno, Depeche Mode, Syd Barrett, John Cale and Dead Can Dance. Medieval, ethnic and folk influences are lifted up beyond their roots, developed through the inclusion of electronic instruments, and skim the borders of rock, pop and gothic. Brendan Perry of Dead Can Dance arranged, recorded and produced six of the eight tracks on Pathways and Dawns.

Enter The Mysterium (City Canyons Records) is Peter’s second album. It’s dark and mysterious, explorative and compellingly haunting, with a rich combination of medieval, ethnic and electronic instruments. Each song comprises a story within a story, with themes culled from the context of the extensive library collection of 16^th century doctor, John Dee. The track “Through Those Eyes” features both of Peter’s daughters. “The Scryer and the Shewstone”, which is also on the award-winning John Barleycorn Reborn album (Woven Wheat Whispers and Coldspring Records), has an up-tempo melody which complements the depth of the lyrics, while “The Witch Bottle of Suffolk” is a forbidding tale that brings to mind the witching hour and Hallowe’en.

Our interview began with an exploration of the background to Enter The Mysterium. Although some reviewers of Peter’s albums have assumed that he is taking a spiritual perspective in his music, Peter had already told me that he doesn't view himself as spiritual, more as an observer and an explorer of ideas. Enter The Mysterium is a compelling multi-cultural, philosophical auditory journey through the mysteries of 16th century doctor/scientist/astronomer/astrologer John Dee's library. I asked Peter what gave him the idea for the album and the title.

PETER: OK - I'm afraid there's no short answer to that question, so here goes...

 I think most reviewers tend to be aware of my past connections with Dead Can Dance, whose music certainly does possess a spiritual dimension, so when I put out an album of songs - 'Enter The Mysterium' - exploring various mysteries and beliefs, many reviewers naturally made the assumption that I was attempting to write spiritual music.  But this is not the case.

 I look to many different areas for sources of inspiration for songs.  There were a couple of personal songs on my first solo album, 'Pathways and Dawns' - for example 'Life Amongst The Black Sheep' is about my early years of parenthood and 'The Springs of Hope' mirrors my generally optimistic outlook on life - but for the most part I find it difficult to write directly from personal experience.  I dislike the blandness, cliches and superficiality of the bulk of modern lyricism.  I have great admiration for songwriters like Jarvis Cocker and Guy Garvey who write wonderfully incisive, witty and emotional takes on the loves and lives of the ordinary man - I can appreciate that, but I can't do it.  Similarly, I love the strange and abstract world of Thom Yorke.  But, I'm too pragmatic to be comfortable writing in that kind of territory, so I have to look for areas where I do feel comfortable.

 I've had pretty much a life-long interest in other cultures - the more different the life to mine, the more it fascinates me.  These could be other contemporary cultures in locations far from where I live (and have lived most of my life) in the metropolis of London, or they could be historic.  I've always been attracted to magazine articles, books, TV documentaries, etc on such subjects - as well as to exploring the musics of all 'alien' cultures.

 Sometime in 2001, I went to a concert at the South Bank Centre in London by Joglaresa, an intriguing early music group led by Belinda Sykes who is both a musician/singer and a professor of medieval song and authority on Arabic music.  The concert was of music recreated from the time of the Crusades, and the programme notes included mention of a phenomenon I had never previously heard of - 'the True Cross'.  I subsequently researched this further and discovered a very colourful history surrounding the travels and ultimate fate of this wooden artefact, believed to have been the central section cut from the cross on which Jesus was crucified and which came to be a potent symbol of the conflict between Christians and Muslims in the wars over control of the Holy Lands.

 I felt moved to write my own song specifically about The True Cross and musically reflecting the historic setting, and this became the first song written for my follow-up album to Pathways and Dawns.  Having completed it and started to think about song number two, the idea occurred to me to write an album of songs about different mysteries and beliefs, with each subject inspiring a different musical setting.  I set about researching potential song subjects and became thoroughly absorbed in the whole process.

 In the summer of 2002, when I was about half way through writing the album, I was browsing in a bookshop for a couple of paperbacks to take on holiday and by chance came across 'The Queen's Conjuror' by Benjamin Woolley and instinctively bought it, mainly because I liked the cover.  It turned out to be a biography of a 16th century doctor called John Dee who was simultaneously a member of the court of Queen Elizabeth I of England, by virtue of his position of physician to the Queen, whilst being widely treated as an outcast and held in deep mistrust because of his dabblings in alchemy, clandestine experiments and his obsessive pursuit of answers to the great universal mysteries through meetings with angels.  As part of his quest for knowledge, Dee accumulated an extraordinary library of ancient and contemporary texts at his house in Mortlake, creating one of the finest libraries of its time outside the major religious and academic institutions.

 Up to my discovery of the Dee book, I had felt slightly uncomfortable that the album I was writing was a little too disjointed and needed some kind of central thread to pull together the disparate parts.  By making the album an allegorical visit to a latter-day Dee's library, where the visitor can dip at random into any tome plucked from the shelf and enter the world of some mystery or belief, I felt I had a more cohesive form.

I then wrote the album's opening song - 'At Mortlake' - to set the scene, and its second song - 'The Scryer and the Shewstone' to specifically explore an aspect of Dee's life, following which the songs appear in the order in which I felt the album best flowed musically, but always (in my mind) staying in the context of the library of discovery.

The title I then chose for the album - 'Enter The Mysterium' - came partly from a series of books which Dee wrote called the 'Liber Mysteriorum' (Books of Mysteries) and partly to convey the idea of entering an 'emporium of mysteries'.

 Having completed the album and given it its context, however, I was acutely aware that I did not want to overstate the importance of the research behind the album and potentially distance the music from anyone not interested in that aspect.  Thus the CD cover booklet merely reproduces the lyrics and says nothing of the context.

 If people want to listen and enjoy the music as it is, or want to read and interpret the words in their own way, I am very happy about that.  But for anyone who wants to read the explanation behind each song, my website at www.TheMysterium.info will reveal all.

 And, as you point out in your question, it will also demonstrate that my role is one of 'observer'.  I am not a spiritual person writing from spiritual experience.  But I am passionately interested in my subject matters, and I hope that I therefore treat them with the sensitivity and impartiality that I strive for.

LISA: What were your early influences, and how have these impacted on your music from the days of Dead Can Dance and This Mortal Coil through to your solo albums?

PETER: I was a child in 60s London, so my earliest influences would have been the obvious groups and artists of the time - The Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Who, Bob Dylan, Elvis, the great Tamla Motown era, and so on.  My parents were avid radio listeners so I was also exposed to a lot of light and mainstream classical music, and my aunt Barbara was an operatic choral singer who was in many 'west end' musicals which I loved being taken to, especially when I got the opportunity to go backstage.

 The first single I ever bought was 'Urban Spaceman' by the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, and the first album was a hits collection by The Move.  The first band I formed (age 11) was called The Vibrations (after the Beach Boys' 'Good Vibrations') and the first song I can remember writing was called 'Cuckoo Hill' which totally ripped-off Donovan's 'Jennifer'.

 In the early 70s I was into Ziggy Stardust era Bowie, followed by getting heavier with a Deep Purple phase.  By the age of 14 or so, I was rejecting the mainstream commercial charts music and searching for greater stimulation.  I found this in progressive rock which, at that time, was the obvious home of the white, middle-class teenage wannabe intellectual.  So I immersed myself in Genesis (strictly Peter Gabriel era only!), Pink Floyd (including catching up on the Syd days that I'd previously missed) and then searched out the bands that became my real favourites of the era such as Nektar, Caravan and Man so that virtually all the other kids at school didn't have a clue what I was on about.

 In the late 70s I was as thrilled as most anti-bland-pop people by the emergence of punk and the transition into the highly fertile 'new wave' era that followed and gave rise to so many influential bands that I couldn't begin naming them, with the exception that I always loved Talking Heads and the creativity of David Byrne.  I also got into reggae - the harder, underground political reggae - stuff like Steel Pulse, Misty in Roots, Linton Kwesi Johnson and (long before their awful pop reincarnation of later years) Aswad.

 The turn of the 80s heralded the arrival of two huge influences - firstly the amazing sound of Joy Division, and secondly the release of the first WOMAD album alerting me to some of the extraordinary sounds which are now absurdly lumped together under that daftest of categorisations 'World Music'.

So it was with a mix of Joy Division on the one hand and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and The Burundi Drummers on the other floating around in my head that I first met Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard in 1982 and was invited to join Dead Can Dance which had just arrived from Australia minus a drummer.

The way these influences impacted on my joining DCD was simply that without these reference points, I would have been too far removed from Brendan and Lisa's wavelengths to have been of any use to them.  However, that's as far as it went.  I did not contribute to the creation of the DCD sound - I was rather a VERY lucky participant in the performance.  Everything about the DCD sound was created by Brendan and Lisa, and their ideas, their passion and their creative processes would become far and away the biggest influence on my future solo works.

It's difficult to say exactly how my early influences have impacted on my solo albums, but I've had comparisons drawn in reviews with Syd Barrett/early Floyd, John Cale, Alan Parsons and Peter Gabriel.  One review of my first album even called it the album The Beatles would have made had they signed to 4AD rather than Capitol, so I guess those early influences must be all wrapped up in there somewhere.

LISA: Your songs in 'Pathways and Dawns' and 'Enter the Mysterium' are very atmospheric, and the background information about each song on 'Enter the Mysterium' that you have on your website is detailed and fascinating.  What motivates and inspires you?

PETER: Just simply any music that moves me.  I think that's probably the same for most people who do anything creative.  When you hear film-makers interviewed, it seems to me they nearly always recount childhood experiences of going to the cinema and being enthralled and deciding "I want to do that".  I've always had that kind of response to music - when I hear something I love, it can often make me feel like going and writing something.

I think you also have to feel that you have something to offer, that in approaching creativity you don't just set out to imitate what has inspired you, but you are motivated because you can see a different angle, a different direction in which to take an idea and thus craft it into something of your own.

LISA: Your first instrument was a pair of bongos that you were given at the age of 10. Did you feel at that early age that your goal was to be a musician?

PETER: No.  I never had an ambition to be 'a musician'.  I just wanted to be involved in music - listening, writing, playing - whatever and whenever the opportunities arose.

My first instrument was actually the piano, or at least it was the family piano that resided in the living room, but which had been bought specifically for me to practise on.  It was a family tradition in both my mum's and dad's families that there was a piano in the house and the kids all took lessons.  I struggled with it for a couple of years, and learned some useful basics, but never really took to it.

The bongoes were a surprise holiday gift one year from my grandparents - only a cheap pair sold to tourists in Acapulco - but the gift was really a life-changing moment for me.  I absolutely loved them - everything about them - not just the sounds, but the look, the feel and the smell of them.  So that really fired my interest in drums and percussion, and I got my first drum kit a few years later.

I taught myself to play drums, as well as some basic guitar, but all within the confines of the teenage bedroom.  I went away to college when I was 18 and hardly played anything until after graduating.  I still loved music - I was buying loads of records, going to gigs, helping out with gigs and discos at college, and so on.  But I wasn't playing, and never really thought about it.

It was a couple of years after leaving college, when my girlfriend and I got our first flat in East London, that I replied to an advert in a newsagent window and joined my first band - a soul and blues band playing the pub circuit on and around the Isle of Dogs.  We rehearsed a couple of times a week and played for beer.

The opportunity to join DCD came about by pure chance. As I mentioned earlier, Brendan, Lisa and original bassist Paul Erikson, came to London from Australia in 1982 in search of a record deal, but their original drummer couldn't make the trip.  They ended up in a flat close to where I lived, put word out they were looking for a drummer, that word reached me and as they couldn't even afford to place a small ad in the NME at the time, they had no option but to give me the drum stool.  Within six months we had a deal with 4AD, and suddenly I was 'a musician'!

LISA: The instrument list on Enter the Mysterium is an impressive collection of tribal, renaissance and modern that ranges from djembe to hammered dulcimer. Was the attraction to each instrument initially through an interest in the culture or the music of that culture, or purely the effects that you could get from the combination of sounds?

PETER: It's exactly the same as with that first pair of bongoes.  I just have this massive attraction to musical instruments.  It's everything about them - look, sound(s), feel, smell - only the sense of taste misses out.  There is a magic about an instrument - every instrument is so full of possibilities, the starting point to a beautiful melody or a rousing rhythm.  I also find it really interesting to know about the culture from which an instrument originates.

In 'The Scryer and the Shewstone', there is a part which should be played on a renaissance wind instrument - probably something like a serpent or (more likely) a crumhorn.  But I don't have one and don't know anyone who does, so I improvised and mimicked the part by humming into a kazoo (remember them? - like a posh version of putting a bit of tracing paper over a comb).  The studio engineer added some effects to the sound and we thought we'd done a damn fine job of disguising it.  The first person I played the demo to - an old compatriate from my Isle of Dogs pub band - immediately said "Blimey, I 'aven't 'eard a kazoo for years!"  Can't win 'em all.

LISA: You've had some (literally) hair-raising adventures while touring, especially when you were gigging in Amsterdam in the early days of Dead Can Dance. What happened there?

PETER: Well, yes, Brendan had a literally hair-raising experience.  That was our first ever gig abroad, when 4AD put us onto an 8-date tour of Holland with the Cocteau Twins in late 1983.  The first date was at the Paradiso in Amsterdam and when we were called to do our soundcheck, we discovered (in glorious naivety) that nobody had realised that they have different electrical plugs in Europe.  All our equipment was fitted with UK 3-pin plugs, so someone had to run out and get a load of European 2-pins which then had to be fitted in a mad rush.  The soundcheck went OK, but once the show started, we were about four songs into our set when there was suddenly a huge 'bang', big flash of blue light and Brendan appeared to jump about three feet into the air.  The audience thought it was some cool pyrotechnic effect and applauded, and at first Scott (then bassist) and I continued playing (having been drilled by Brendan NEVER to stop in the middle of a song) and not realising at that point what was happening.  Brendan started shaking alarmingly and Lisa ran to help him.  Luckily the on-stage sound engineer realised immediately that Brendan's guitar had gone live and was now stuck to his body with the full mains current surging through him and earthing into the stage.  He ran over, pushed Lisa back (had she grabbed Brendan, she would have been sucked into the circuit) and managed to spectacularly kung-fu kick Brendan's guitar off him.  Brendan staggered off stage, severely shaken.  It was only afterwards that we discovered that the replacement plug had been wired incorrectly, resulting in Brendan nearly being killed.

PETER: My involvement with DCD is 100% positive - there are no negatives - so, no, it's never haunted me and I can't imagine it ever will.  I had amazing experiences recording and touring Europe and America with DCD.  And then subsequently I have had my solo 'career' which simply would never have been possible had it not been for DCD and, in particular, Brendan.

When I came to make 'Enter The Mysterium' a few years later, I felt I needed to do it without Brendan's input to prove to myself that I could - though, of course, I found myself constantly referring back in my mind to things he had taught me, or things I had picked up from watching him work.

This sequence of events made the progression of my albums unusual in that my second album is more raw and earthy in feel than the first which is more 'polished'.  Usually it goes the other way but, although I remain very happy with both albums, in some ways I feel more comfortable with the rugged qualities of 'Mysterium', and it's satisfying to know I did that (albeit with the valuable input of engineer/co-producer Hill Briggs).

Having made the albums, I needed to find a label to release them and, once again, without having the DCD association, I am not sure I would have been able to interest anybody - it would certainly have been a lot harder.  Dropping the DCD name, particularly in the US where DCD is very big, opened a lot of doors.

And again, once the albums were released and we went out into the market seeking exposure/reviews/airplay etc, the DCD connection would come into play, gaining me a lot more coverage in the US than had I been the solo artist from nowhere.

The one danger was that my music would be compared too directly with DCD and my voice with Brendan's, in which circumstances I would, of course, always be found wanting.

However, I've found that most reviewers have always taken a very considerate stance on this, realising that I am not putting myself forward as any kind of extension of, or alternative to DCD, but rather that I have created my own sound with DCD as an important reference point.

When I look back through my press cuttings file, I am surprised and touched by so many glowing reviews, and I have to say there is a genuine warmth and desire to like what I do from people who have clearly been moved so deeply by DCD in the past.

This is also reflected very strongly in the comments that come in (via my website and more recently my page at www.myspace.com/peterulrich) from people who have bought my albums and who understand and appreciate what I am doing with a depth and passion that never ceases to move me.  It is truly wonderful to have this connection with people all over the world through my music.

I am happy that I am, all the time, developing my own audience and that my Venn diagram has a growing area beyond the overlap with DCD.  My current label - City Canyons Records in New York - is playing a vital role in this as they have no historic connection with anything DCD-related or any artists working in 'Goth', 'darkwave', 'ethereal' or any of the genres with which DCD has been associated.

It was a very deliberate move on my part to approach City Canyons with regards to the release of Mysterium as it was, at the time, a small but highly energetic and ambitious label looking to build a very diverse roster of artists and going for mainstream audiences.  I thought if I could interest them in my music, it would be very interesting to see where this could lead.  Luckily, label head Trebor Lloyd loved the demo I sent in (his favourite song is track 9, so he must really have listened all through it!!) and we quickly agreed terms.  I became only the third artist signed to the label, but now City Canyons is up to eight or nine acts with several more bubbling under.  Trebor, and his vice-president Tamara, have boundless energy and enthusiasm, and there's a real buzz about the label which is quite unusual in the current economic climate!  The musical output certainly is diverse, but there is still a good 'family' atmosphere about the label, and a few collaborations between artists are starting to emerge, which opens up further interesting possibilities.  Further information can be found at www.citycanyons.com

Having said all that, DCD will always be a big presence in what I do and where I have come from, and I will always embrace that.

LISA: One of your songs, 'The Scryer and the Shewstone', is on the John Barleycorn Reborn album which recently won the 'Innovation Of The Year' award from the Fatea Folk Magazine. What's the story behind the song?

PETER: It's good that you mention the Barleycorn album at this point, as it leads on directly from the point I was just making about developing my own audience.

Do you mind if I come back to your question about the specific song in a minute?

The big problem in promoting my music, particularly here in the UK, has always been that I don't fit anywhere.  It's all very well being 'eclectic', but from a marketing point of view, it can be quite disasterous not to fit neatly into a pigeon-hole.  It means that when you send an unsolicited review CD to the mainstream media, the person receiving it either sends it to the rock, or jazz, or folk critic - any of whom will take a quick listen and say "that's not my area" - or thinks "I haven't got a clue who to send this to for review".  Either way, the review copy ends up in the bin or down the local charity shop and no review appears.  Same situation with radio stations, and hence radio airplay has largely eluded me.

Then a friend of mine - Steve Tyler of the wonderful early music group Misericordia - tipped me off that Mark Coyle who runs the Woven Wheat Whispers download site was compiling an album of dark British folk music.  I contacted Mark who was very welcoming to my approach, sent him a copy of Mysterium, and he came back to me really eager to include a track on his 'John Barleycorn Reborn' compilation.

The album was released about six months ago and I'm really pleased that I got involved.  It's a brilliant compilation of very varied music from a wildly varied set of bands/artists, most of whom are/were little known and would have been struggling to achieve exposure in the same way I was.  But as a collective whole, the 'JBR' album has taken on a life force of its own and is really making an impression.

In just the last few weeks, 'JBR' received a glowing review in Songlines magazine (their 50th anniversary issue) and another great review in Choice, the free magazine available through all branches of HMV.  To coincide with the review in Choice, HMV are supposed to be stepping up their stock and giving the album prime rack positions in stores.  Additionally, 'JBR' won the FATEA award which you mention, and was recently featured on Stuart Maconie's 'Freakzone' show on BBC Radio 6, with my song being one of the two tracks chosen for airplay.  These are major breakthroughs as far as I'm concerned - a level of exposure I've never been able to achieve on my own, and I hope my involvement in JBR will help establish me as a recognisable name in the fringe British folk scene, helping me expand my audience in this sector.

As for the song itself, I left the selection to Mark Coyle.  Initially he planned to use 'The Witchbottle of Suffolk' from 'Mysterium' - which is the 'darkest' song on my album, but at the last minute he changed his mind and selected 'The Scryer and the Shewstone' which recounts some of Dr John Dee's recorded meetings with angels through his scryer (medium) Edward Kelley.  For anyone who's interested, there's a more detailed explanation on my website at www.TheMysterium.info/t2.htm and I think you can still hear the song on the music player at www.myspace.com/johnbarleycornreborn

The 'JBR' album is, in itself, a major research project by Mark and is supported by a fascinating website full of dark folklore, antiquated anecdotes and great imagery, which can be found at www.john-barleycorn-reborn.com

LISA: Your logo is intriguing. What does it symbolise?

PETER: The logo was originally Trebor's idea.  When we started working on ideas for the cover of 'Enter The Mysterium', he asked me if I'd ever thought about using a symbol image.  I hadn't, but I liked the idea.  I already had it firmly fixed in my mind that I wanted to use the two door pictures on the front and back covers, but the idea of a symbol for use on the actual disc and perhaps elsewhere in the cover booklet appealed to me.

I started looking through books of symbols, but everything I found already had too many other associations, and I wanted something different.  The only answer was to create my own image.

I took a series of well known symbols - the all-seeing eye, the sun, the Cardinal points, the serpent, rune signs for fire and water, the Islamic crescent moon, the Christian cross, etc, and combined them into my own image which contains at least one symbol relevant to each song on the album.

When I sent it to Trebor, he loved it and so we decided to use it extensively as an image to represent both me as artist and the album.

I like the way City Canyons's designer, R K Watkins, used it as a recurring image through the cover booklet and disc.

It has also proved a useful image to use as my identifier on myspace, so it pops up all over the place now.

LISA: What next? Plans, hopes, goals?

PETER: Well, it's been very frustrating that there have been such long gaps between my albums, and the third one is still some distance away at the moment... but it is definitely in the pipeline.

Together with City Canyons, I've spent a huge amount of time promoting 'Enter The Mysterium', and we would still love to reach a lot more people with it, so we're not in a rush to release the follow-up.  I also have a couple of other projects on the go which I can't say too much about yet, but which are taking priority at the moment.

In the meantime, we've been working at trying to get licensing of my songs, or extracts, into soundtracks, partly to widen the recognition of my music and extend my audience through that medium, and partly for purely financial reasons.  Income from such licensing could allow me to devote more time to writing and recording new material, so it would be a self-generating process.

That's pretty much it really.  I'm not setting any specific goals or time frames, but I would love to get some serious new writing underway and get back in the studio again.

LISA: While we're waiting for your next album, where is 'Enter The Mysterium' available?

PETER: I think you'd be hard-pushed to find a copy in the shops now, but it should be readily available from all the usual on-line sources. The CD is available from Amazon.com at the following link: here
and, I think, from Amazon pretty much worldwide in other currencies. If you buy from the UK/Europe, you should get the SACD version, which plays on standard decks, but for anyone with an SACD player or 5.1 DVD movie system, it will give you a 'surround sound' effect.  The US/rest of world release is in standard CD format.

In the UK, it's available on-line from HMV and Play, and even from Woolworth and Tesco!  In the US, it's available at CD Baby or direct from the City Canyons site store.

Alternatively, it's available by digital download at Mark Coyle's www.wovenwheatwhispers.co.uk or at i-Tunes.

If this isn't being a bit too cheeky, if you buy from a site like Amazon, it helps enormously if you can buy the album at the same time as making other purchases - this triggers that device where they say "people who bought x also bought y and z" which gets my album popping up on other pages.

Furthermore - sorry, I know I'm really pushing my luck here - it's really a big help if you like the album and you go back and post a customer review.  I'm normally a bit reticent about asking people to do this, and hence I have hardly any reviews on Amazon... so take pity on me!

And, of course, if you want to tell me what you think, I'm there on myspace where it's great to receive messages / comments - and I do my best to reply to them all.

You can find out more about Peter Ulrich’s work at:

http://www.themysterium.info/

http://www.myspace.com/peterulrich

http://www.citycanyons.com/ulrich/index.html