Interview: Ishmael Ensemble founder, Pete Cunningham | LOUD Bristol Issue Three
Posted on: 24 Dec 2021This article was first published in the third issue of LOUD Bristol, 365Bristol's dedicated music magazine. Read LOUD Issue Three and browse our first two editions here.
Ishmael Ensemble
Pete Cunningham, founder and spearhead of Ishmael Ensemble, dives into the project’s latest album, its origins and the joy of self-releasing.
Pete Cunningham, the multi-faceted stalwart of Ishmael Ensemble, is late for our Zoom meeting. He’s stretched thin, playing catch up after returning from his honeymoon. Understandable, given what’s on his plate. Sticking doggedly to his DIY guns and releasing the Ensemble’s second full length album, Visions of Light, to widespread acclaim through his own label in August, the project that has been a lifetime in the making for Pete is in demand. Grand in scale, the record covers a lot of sonic territory, from the sax, electronic and percussive clamour of ‘Wax Werk’ and ‘Empty Hands’ going haywire as they hit their crescendo to the more delicate, expansive synth and string soundscapes of ‘Morning Chorus’ and ‘The Gift’. The album champions local talent and unsettles genre tags from the word go.
Embedded in Pete’s past, the roots of Ishmael Ensemble stretch back a long way. Growing up in Midsomer Norton, he was surrounded by music. His parents kept a classic 70s record collection featuring Bob Dylan, Frank Zappa and Neil Young among others and his father dabbled in playing guitar. Never far from music, Pete’s early years sparked a lifelong obsession and introduced him a vast array of genres, styles, and instruments. During this formative period, he learnt to use vinyl, awakening the DJ in him; he discovered punk, prog-rock and hip-hop playing old skate games, subsequently picking up the guitar; before discovering drum and bass in his late teens - also teaching himself how to produce electronic music.
But perhaps the biggest influence of all is the late, great Pee Wee Ellis. In the mid-90s, the world-renowned musician who worked closely with the likes of James Brown and Van Morrison moved to Frome. Pete’s parents regularly took him to catch a glimpse of the icon at a monthly jazz afternoon in a village called Nunney – where he became besotted. “He was a masterful saxophonist. It made me really want to play it. In a way, he’s the reason I picked up the tenor saxophone.”
By his early 20s, Pete was fusing these influences with his skill on various instruments to create what became the first tracks he released as Ishmael – named after the seafaring narrator of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. After dropping a few ‘jazzy house tracks’, Bristol staple Banoffee Pies approached him and suggested that he consider bringing in other musicians. “They sparked the idea of bringing in a drummer. If you have a drummer, you might as well have a bassist and a guitarist. Suddenly it becomes this big thing. They gave me that nudge.”
“To me, record labels evoke big capitalist skyscrapers in London and getting charmed by some A&R people. By doing it myself, I actually have control and that’s really special”
After some old school friends came aboard, Ishmael Ensemble was formed, he adds. “It was like; I’ve already been playing in bands with you for years so why not see if we can make this weird crossover electronic stuff. That was Ishmael Ensemble and still is today.”
Banoffee Pies liked what Pete had been releasing and committed unconditionally to putting out the first tracks created as Ishmael Ensemble. “It was quite an old school way of working as a record label. Just make some music, it doesn’t matter what it sounds like because we like your style,” he says. “It was not a dance record or an electronic record. So, as a predominantly house and techno label, putting something like that out there was bold. Having that freedom really spurred me on.”
This proved an eye-opening experience for Pete and led him to set up his own label, Severn Songs - through which he began self-releasing his music. “To me, record labels evoke big capitalist skyscrapers in London and getting charmed by some A&R people. By doing it myself, I actually have control and that’s really special.” Pete carried this DIY ethos into all of Ishmael Ensemble’s subsequent releases, including the project’s two full-length albums A State of Flow (2019) and this year’s Visions of Light. In fact, it was self-releasing that allowed the latter record to be made at all. After flirting with the idea of signing to a label before the first lockdown, Pete decided to go it alone once again after they hesitated as Covid hit.
Certain freedoms associated with self-releasing favoured Visions of Light, which was recorded over seven months and a string of successive lockdowns. “It weirdly benefited from being made during the pandemic. At first, I thought this is all screwed, we’re never going to make this record. But having that time and space to really think about what needs to be on the record and what makes a good record, not necessarily just what I like, made it more refined and concise.”
Ishmael Ensemble on-stage in 2021. Photos: James Styler
The recruitment of indie titan Ali Chant (PJ Harvey, Perfume Genius, Aldous Harding) to assist with production and mixing also helped keep the record succinct. “Having someone that’s able to be cutthroat and say ‘I don’t think this song needs to be on the album’ for the first time was really helpful,” Pete says. “He’s good at getting the best out of a song. I think that’s quite noticeable on the record. It’s three- or four-minute songs instead of these six/seven-minute prog epics.”
With the ensemble as open-ended as ever, Visions of Light champions an array of Bristol’s homegrown talent. Hollyseus Fly features heavily, regularly collaborating with Pete and contributing her ethereal vocals and delicate piano motifs to the record, with Stanlæy’s Bethany Stenning and Tiny Chapter (Alun Elliott-Williams of Waldo’s Gift’s solo endeavour) also lending their voices to the album. “That’s how I see it,” Pete says. “Ishmael Ensemble the recording project, which is open-ended. It doesn’t really matter who’s playing and then that gets refined into this band because obviously we can’t take 20 people on the road.”
Influenced by each member, Visions of Light is a melange of musical ideas crashing together to form something enchanting and totally unique, easily heard through different lenses, from post-rock to trip-hop and 90s electronica to name a few. It’s a body of work a lifetime in the making - authentic top to bottom.
Photos: James Styler
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George is a journalism graduate and writer passionate about music and culture. Get in touch via email at george@365bristol.com
