Pete Um

Pete Um, is going to be the support act for Thom Yorke from Radiohead at a gig at the Cambridge Corn Exchange on 25th February 2010

I make my music in my room recording mainly to computer but sometimes to 4-track or reel to reel tape machines. I used to use the sampling/sequencing type functionality of music software a lot more but most of the time I now use my computer just as an 8-track with
effects and a lot of the music is played on real instruments in real time. The fact that I can't really play any instruments makes for a bit of a sloppy feel but I kind of like it that way and I do a lot of editing besides. A lot of editing sometimes!

I do what I do because I am driven to do it and it's sad to say I would rather make music than do anything else, pretty much. I'm basically trying to create something with a unique aesthetic that has the same effect on other people that the music that delights,inspires or even confuses me in my life does, but a lot of the time I think I'm just doing it just for me because there doesn't seem to be a massive appetite for the Um sound in the wider populace whereas I seem to have an endless fascination with my own stuff.
I'm extremely prolific and I'm almost always satisfied with what I produce. It's like a narcissistic curse! I think in some ways music sort of functions as an alternate reality that I can tinker with whilst hiding from the so-called real world. Somebody described it recently as "an orchestra of shed" and I think that touched on something. It's like a burrow or something. I think the performance aspect is also important to me but that's a bit more straightforward attention-seeking. I like the crowd mind.

I keep going because I failed to produce an alternative CV, because I enjoy doing what I do and it has a life of it's own that constantly rewards me, even if that just means meeting like-minded people. It ain't a living, but it's a life.