Where is the Green Parrot? is not really an album, more a series of locations. The roaming microphone is like a camera, recording events, ambiences, and interactions, with music merely as one part of the fabric. We move from the English countryside and the calls of nightjars, to a wild life safari in Africa, a guitar shop in north London, a screeching metal gangplank in Newcastle, a malfunctioning burglar alarm, and an attempt to teach a parrot to talk. Peter reprocesses the recorded sounds, adding electronics and samples, and some of the soundscapes are interlaced with delicate bazouki and guitar improvisations. The instrumental passages are subtle, intricate and contemplative, reflecting his total grasp of the instruments.

In the guitar shop Peter's avant plucking is interrupted by the usual 'Stairway to Heaven' riffs from the other customers, and his young son regularly pipes up with cheeky comments. Peter writes; "Two Small Boys Go Shopping is exactly that, the sounds of two boys (myself and son), one is four, the other in his forties, visiting some favourite shops in North London, where they live. Part documentary, part music, but all of the environment. One of the positive sides of spending time with young children is that you, once again, experience the mundane and over familiar with fresh eyes and ears. Shops become places to explore and rummage through, spaces with their very own acoustics and atmospheres, sources of knowledge, excitements for the imagination. You can take off on fantastic journeys from the high street travel agent, toyshops are serious playgrounds, and guitar shops the stuff of truly awesome sonic mismatches".

So this is a record of animals and humans in their natural (and unnatural) habitats. It's somewhere between 'Social Ornithology' (Peter's description), wallpaper music, performance, noise, magic, boredom, improvisation, electronics, childcare, cultural difference, animal welfare and a folk guitar album from hell.

Peter Cusak has been active in the UK improvising scene since the early 70's, and has performed and recorded with among others Clive Bell, Alquemia, Nic Collins, Max Eastley, and Thomas Koner. He is curating 'The Week of small miracles', a multi media millennium project on the river Lee in north London, to run in the year 2000.