Four-track recordings can be a dangerous art. The accessibility of being able to record anything, anytime is wildly freeing but it can lead to a tendency not to edit. The debut record from Peter Brooks is 30 tracks of bedroom recordings spanning just nine months. That’s alotta tracks!
While that volume of music does tend to be a bit overwhelming, there are more than several handfuls of highlights that make the listen well worth it. To start, the last three tracks of the record are covers of Frank Zappa, Herb Alpert and Haroumi Hosono; a solid reference point for where Brooks influence is coming from. Tracks like the instrumental “Footprints on the Moon” or the crescendo’ing “little g (in all of us)” exemplify the goodness and freedom of the bedroom recording. It may be a bit lo-fi but it’s clearly free flowing creativity.