Peter Cusack is an artist and musician who is a member of CRiSAP (Creative Research in Sound Arts Practice), and is a research staff member and founding member of the London College of Communication in the University of the Arts London. He was a founding member and director of the London Musicians' Collective.
He is best known as a member of the avant garde musical quartet, Alterations (1978–1986; with Steve Beresford, David Toop, and Terry Day), and the creator of field and wildlife recording-based albums including:
Cusack has been involved in a wide range of projects throughout his career. Several of his pieces have been reviewed in Leonardo Music Journal, the annual music Journal published by MIT Press. He has also curated an album for Leonardo Music Journal.
He is currently research fellow on the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council's multidisciplinary 'Positive Soundscapes Project'.
Cusack is particularly interested in environmental sound and acoustic ecology. He has examined the sound properties of areas such as Lake Baikal, Siberia, and the Azerbaijan oil fields, and is interested in how sounds change as people migrate and as technology changes.
In 1998, Cusack started the "Your Favorite London Sound" project. The goal is to find out what London noises are found appealing by people who live in London. This was so popular that it has been repeated in Chicago, Beijing, and other cities. He is involved in the "Sound & The City" art project using sounds from Beijing in October 2005.
Cusack's Sounds From Dangerous Places is a project to collect sounds from sites which have sustained major environmental damage. Sites that Cusack is working on include Chernobyl, the Azerbaijan oil fields, and areas around controversial dams on the Tigris and Euphrates river systems in south east Turkey.