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In Cambridge in 1989, guitarist Michael Bearpark and pianist Peter Chilvers formed Samuel Smiles, an ECM-style improvising collective. Over the next few years, the band underwent a number of changes in direction (including folk and country) before joining with No-Man vocalist Tim Bowness to become the imaginatively named Tim Bowness / Samuel Smiles. The band rapport was so instant that they performed their first live date on the day of their first rehearsal, and went into Amazon Studios in Liverpool to record a live album barely three weeks later - these sessions have now been released on Burning Shed as 'Live Archive One'.
The band continued sporadically to record and perform over the next decade, culminating in the 1999 studio album 'World of Bright Futures'. Meanwhile, Peter developed enthusiasm for the fretless bass and played with the now defunct band Love X and Y, and formed Alias Grace with Irish singer-songwriter Sandra O'Neill.
Alias Grace set out to combine the musical styles of artists like Joni Mitchell and Everything but the Girl with the imaginative electronic arrangements of Peter Gabriel and David Sylvian, providing Peter with an opportunity to develop as a writer, producer and performer and expanding his musical palette to include textural guitar playing and chapman stick experiments. In this time, he also wrote a number of generative soundtracks for the Creatures computer games, released by CreatureLabs
Following a move to Norwich in 2000, Peter joined alt-progressive band Henry Fool as bassist on their debut album released by Cyclops, and founded the online label and artist shop Burning Shed with Tim Bowness and noisebox label boss Pete Morgan.
During the following years in Norwich, Peter recorded three primarily instrumental solo albums, two 'ambient singer songwriter' collaborations with Tim Bowness, guested on No-Man's acclaimed 'Together We're Stranger' and founded improvising collective A Marble Calm with marimba and vibraphone veteran Jon Hart.
Now back in Cambridge, he has recently released an album of solo piano improvisations sparsely titled 'piano' and a second A Marble Calm album, 'Blue Turns to Grey'. He is working on new up albums with Alias Grace, Tim Bowness and Henry Fool and a generative music project with acclaimed producer Brian Eno.
Many of Peter's albums are available from the Peter Chilvers section at www.burningshed.com.