gothic rock

2 MP3 Songs
ROCK: Instrumental Rock, SPIRITUAL: Spirituals

Show all album songs: The Lost Souls Entwined Songs


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â A composer with the ability to transcend several musical genres and yet stay firmly focused within his own perceived soundâ¦he is certainly one of Australia's most creative and interesting composers for acoustic music to emerge in the last decade. The word 'genius' I have always reserved for the greats like Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, Richard Thompson and Louie Armstrong, but given the diversity, variation, number of musical genres, and the prolific number of high quality, original compositions of all styles of music Pete has put out on this record, and continues to produce every year, not to mention a back catalogue of finely crafted original songs (that always have something unique to say about the human condition), it's hard not to use the word for him here as wellâ 3WBC 94.1FM, Box Hill, Victoria

Pete Hawkes was born in Lake Macquarie, Australia in 1965 and after hearing Robert Johnson for the first time as a teenager, he was inspired to play the guitar. Eventually he moved to Newcastle to study. There he supported himself by playing slide guitar with different blues bands around the city. Slide was his first love, and most of his session work came from it in his later life.

After his studies, half way through a degree in mathematics - Pete moved to Bream Creek, Tasmania â where he studied instrument making (lutes, bodhrans, dulcimers) with Strato Anagnostis. A year later, he moved to Hobart to further his skills with luthier Neil Laughlin. (He designed a guitar at the workshop to maximise acoustic finger style guitar which be built and later Laughlin refined many years later in 2006).

Pete moved to Canberra after his time in Tasmania. He began teaching and honing his song writing skills. After a gig in Murrumbateman he was discovered and it was from there that a fiddle player/chicken farmer âSandy invited Pete to perform at other clubs and festivals in the region. From these gigs Pete formed a working partnership with Sandy Gibney (Feral Bothers) and Malcolm McDonnell. Pete was persuaded by friends to record an album after he played the song âa housewifeâs lamentâ at the national folk festival where people were crowding rooms to hear the song.

Swarbrick, the infamous fiddle player has just divorced his tenth or eleventh wife and was moving back to Coventry UK from Leura in the blue mountains where he was living. On the way back, to pay for a container on the ship he agreed to play a number of tracks on Peteâs album

After Secrets, Vows & Lies was released it was picked up by Festival records. Released that year by Festival Records it initially sold poorly but was criticaly acclaimed around the world, an Australian tour followed with the fiddle player Pip Thompson and the amazing harmonica man Justin Smith. During this tour, Pete supported folk notables such as Steeleye Span and Bert Jansch,

Later, Pete relocated to London and, after a long discussion with Festival got back the rights to the secrets sessions. He toured throughout Europe and into Russia.

In Russia he played Jazz with the Russians and lived there for three months slipping out every month and renewing his visa on entry. During his time in St. Petersburg, he played exclusively with local jazz musicians and did lots of (poorly paid) slide session work. (He appears on lots of russian albums no one will hear in the west unless the mail order bride business picks up). âWe pretty much played up and down Nevsky Prospect - doing the hotels â we did clubs and hotels in Moscow, catching the sleeper train between cities'. Pete also lived with the gypsies and went on tour in the nortehrn part of Europe with them.

Pete released âUnspoken Riddlesâ on his return to Oz. Half of it recorded at blue bear studios in Australia before he left.

Also upon his return to Australia, Pete moved to Melbourne and found his creative stride and released 'Melancholy Cello' - which has a very Russian flavour thanks to his experience abroad, it won the 2001 ABC song writing award â he then composed several different recording projects 'The Dadgad Files', Original Reels, Jigs, and Airs, featuring a number of great fiddlers, - which was a recognition to tDavy Graham, ..and 'Double Diversity' a double album containing music form all genres including some great acoustic Jazz. 'Czardas' was a devoted to his memories of Masha. 'Melody For the Mammaries of Cass' the beautiful sparce instrumental that resides between two larger and more formative songs however is another tale we dont have time for now.

Peteâs latest project is the beautiful âWitchcraftâ - beautiful chamber music. Jeb Tyler (Australian Hi If magazine) writes â the music on Witchcraft will certainly come back to haunt you! Hawkes writes music that is strange and sad but at the same time bitterly beautiful. Itâs difficult to describe. The closest I can get. A cross between Romany Gypsy and New Age doesnât really do it justiceâ

Pete is currently completing the album with electric virtuoso Phil Emmanuel on the epic âLost Sousl Enwtinedâ to be released 2007.