Peter Broderick is a musician who doesn’t ever seem to stand still. It was just under a year ago that I reviewed his 2016 album, Partners, an innovative album inspired by the works of legendary composer John Cage. Immediately after that, Broderick made another album, Grunewald, toured extensively and even wrote and released a lengthy book of sheet music – Piano Works, Volume 1. Since his acclaimed 2007 debut with band Eferklang, Broderick has released thirty works which include albums and EPs, both as a solo and collaborative artist – his latest, written and recorded with David Allred, came out earlier this year. It perhaps comes as no surprise then that Broderick is already well into his next venture.
"I’m just finishing it up now," Broderick tells me. "I’m putting together another release that’s going to be on Erased Tapes at some point. It’s a collection of commissioned works, so they’re pieces that I was asked to write. Often my commissioned works have been music for dance or film, but this one’s a bit odd – a couple of them are music pieces that I wrote for people’s weddings, or there’s one that was written for a ferry boat ride – one was written for a fashion show. So it’s sort of an odd, personal collection of commissioned works!"
For someone who works as tirelessly and with such breadth, unsurprisingly Broderick has vast and eclectic music tastes. In fact, there’s so many, Broderick can’t always remember them all. "You know, I always have a hard time when someone asks me ‘what are you listening to now?’, for some reason when I’m put on the spot to come up with what my inspiration is, my mind just goes blank a lot of the time! [Laughs] I’ve also moved around so much over the years that I’ve had so many different record collections."
Yet his Baker’s Dozen choices proved relatively straightforward for him. Broderick’s chose the albums that sprang to his mind instantly – something he feels says a lot about their importance to him. The choices are made up of the albums he has returned to time and time again, the ones with the greatest personal memories for him, or ones that take him back to his childhood.
Peter Broderick & friends play the Southbank Centre on 9th September – for more information go here. Click the image below to read Peter’s Baker’s Dozen
