Images of Peter: Finding Peter Godwin

Popshifter:: I find that your general image (past and present) and musical “flavor” seems to be rooted in a very European aesthetic. Do you believe that the “centralization” of Europe is a positive move, artistically or otherwise? (You don’t seem quintessentially “English”; Americans sort of have a staid preconception or stereotype of what “Englishness” is or what “European” is.)

Peter Godwin: As you can tell from my answers so far, my life has me entangled with both my English/British homeland and my local continent, Europe. And it comes from travel and adventures and also from soul journeys through music, art, and culture. I began with this focus, because it felt like no one at the time was reflecting this reality in their music. Since then, obviously, things have changed.

In reality, as you can see even from my early influences, I’m interested in the whole planet, what Marshall McLuhan called, so prophetically and decades ago, “the global village.” I studied him at university and fell in love with his ideas. For me it’s one global culture, shrunk these days so dramatically by the Web.

But that One-ness is a mosaic “of many coloured-glass,” as the poet Shelley said in “Adonais”: Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass/Stains the white radiance of Eternity . . . His was a different context, but I see these many colours as an extraordinary gift, all these beautiful cultures that we can celebrate and keep alive. But also fuse into new evolutions and hybrids. In life, so in art. For me this is always the future. We can be gypsies, whether in our bodies or our minds: we experience it, transmute it, and radiate it back out there.

I’m half Greek in my DNA, so maybe the restless gypsy blood of Odysseus flows in my veins, but, surely it flows through all of us, since we left the Serengeti Plain and went wandering, million of years ago. . .

So, even on my latest Nuevo album, you will hear influences and re-interpretations from many lands, haunting those tracks. . . “Namaste” is a kind of Himalayan chant with a strong Northern India drone Raga feel. But of course it’s post-modernized, because I’m not a classical Indian musician, and neither is Johnson. I loved this journey into Indian music since I heard it in the Beatles, especially George Harrison’s work. I’ve practised various forms of yoga most of my adult life, wrestled with different kinds of meditation, and loved Indian music, writings, and philosophy. So “Namaste” had been written in my dreams for many years. But it was finally born on Sunset Rise.

For six years now I’ve been dancing Argentine tango. This is a kind of culmination of an intermittent love affair I’ve had with Latin American culture my whole life, although it took a twist of fate to bring me to the dance. I always loved the mystery and poetry of tango music and dance, but “Milonga Moon” on Sunset Rise is the nearest I’ve come to writing anything with a tango atmosphere. Still, it’s not tango, but there are some Argentine molecules in there somewhere. . . it’s not even Tango Nuevo, even though the band is called Nuevo. That’s because I think what we’re doing is “new” and I love a word that has a nice sound and a global sensibility, which as a name, I think Nuevo has, even though that may be my personal madness. . .

I do love Tango Nuevo bands: Gotan Project, Bajofondo, Narcotango, Tanghetto, bands like that. It’s interesting that they are combining electronic and European dance music with the signature tango instrument, the bandonéon. And Tanghetto have released some very cool instrumental versions of ’80s classics like New Order’s “Blue Monday” and (my personal favourite) Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy The Silence.” Of course, Gotan Project are all over popular culture now. They regularly use their music to trailer Desperate Housewives, Sex and the City, Nip/Tuck. . . even J. Lo and Richard Gere danced to them in Shall We Dance! Gotan are a great example of a “trans-global” band. A mixture of French, Swiss, and Argentine members. All of this makes sense to me. “The Trans-Global Village.”

Even back in the ’80s Grace Jones sang an English melody, with a French spoken bridge, to Astor Piazzola’s tango masterpiece “Libertango.” So none of this crossover is completely new. And Conny Plank produced Piazzola, as well as Kraftwerk, The Eurythmics, Ultravox, and dozens of other “electronic” innovators—and Marlene Dietrich! These “accidents” and intersections of music and culture are for me, simply the history of all music and how it evolves, and it’s all vibrant, exciting, necessary, and. . . inevitable!

Click here to read more from Peter Godwin on. . .

Setting The Scene
Influences
Cult Following and Italo-Disco
Benitez, Bowie, and Electronic Music
French and Spanish Inspirations
Producing and Writing
The English and European Aesthetic
Working with Steve Winwood
Off The Map
Working with Others
Forays Into Acting
More On Acting

Introduction:

Cherchez la femme: “Images of Heaven”
Discovering Peter Godwin
Rediscovering Peter Godwin

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