Does Peter Hollo get bored? It’s hard to imagine he has the time, given his work with bands Haunts and Tangents, international touring with FourPlay String Quartet, his solo project – Raven – and weekly FBi radio show ‘Utility Fog’.
A highlight of the recently reviewed Pleq EP, Kingdom Hall, was Peter’s cello playing on “Only in the Dark”. I caught up with Peter to discuss working on the project and to see what else is coming up for him.
Matt Wakeling: How did you come to know Bartosz Dziadosz (Pleq) – had you worked with him previously?
Peter Hollo: Bartosz got in touch with me. I think it’s most likely that he heard my collaboration with Sophie Hutchings from the Dronarivm comp 15 Shades of White. I hadn’t worked with him before.
MW: Where did you record the parts for “Only in the Dark”?
PH: These were recorded in my study, where I mostly record my cello.
MW: So, the two of you were sending tracks between Poland and Australia over the ‘net?
PH: Yeah, he basically sent me a mix of the track as it stood, and I sent him back two WAVs of the cello recordings. These days Dropbox or WeTransfer seem to be the main ways of sending, although people use Hightail, Google Drive or other things too.
MW: Were you given much creative direction?
PH: None at all. Julien Marchal had already recorded his lovely piano overdubs, and the washes of sound from Bartosz were already there. I wrote out all the chords so that I could follow the structure closely, and then recorded two cello lines over the top, and that was it!
MW: What other music projects are you working on at the moment?
PH: My solo project raven slowly trundles along. I put out a two track single on Bandcamp last year with no cello – piano & electronics. It came out of a collaboration with animator Damian Gascoigne, and I’ll be working more with him this year. There’s an unreleased raven album which may see the light of day this year! But…
My band Tangents has a new album coming out in the middle of the year from an awesome US label but it’s not being announced for another month or so.
FourPlay String Quartet continues to work on a substantial collaboration with Neil Gaiman which will probably be launched in the second half of 2017.
I played on most of Sophie Hutchings’ lovely new album, forthcoming this year, and I’m working with a beautiful indie/folk group called Close to Forever as well. Among other things.
You can find more information on Peter Hollo’s activities here.
Picture credit: Angela Stengel
