Your Bristol Life is back for a second series of five podcasts shining a light on underrepresented aspects of Bristol's history. This BCfm series was made with the Bristol Cable, Bristol History Podcast and In The Dark.
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A Short History Of Purple Penguin by Peter Hall
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You have all heard about the Bristol Sound, and the Bristol street art scene is well documented, but have you heard of the small record shop that was at the heart of it all? Peter Hall presents this short history of Purple Penguin. A tale of community, creativity and underground culture.

This is a story about a distinct community that grew from a widely unknown establishment that was situated on Colston Street in the mid 90s. It was a hub for all things underground hip hop, funk, soul and beats, and was the only place in Bristol you could get hold of certain US imported music, video tapes of scratch DJs, graffiti magazines, clothes, spray cans etc. It soon became a mecca for anyone interested in hip hop culture, sample digging, beat making, and would later develop into a foundation for creativity.

In this podcast we hear from the people that worked at Purple Penguin, and discover how it influenced their lives, as well as the lives of countless others, who ventured through its doors.
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Featured artwork by Jon Trace

A Short History Of Purple Penguin by Peter Hall - Your Bristol Life Episode 8

First Flight

Peter started out as a kid obsessed with beats and scratching in the 90s. He honed his turntablist skills, and set about learning his craft in the underground clubs of Bristol and Cardiff, battling other DJs at various spots around both cities. He supported a long list of his personal heroes including Roots Manuva, Blak Twang, Mark B and Blade, as well as hip hop royalty; The Beatnuts, Grandmaster Flash, and Public Enemy.

Inspired by the music of DJ Shadow, RJD2 and local legends Massive Attack and Portishead, he soon turned his hand to production. His debut album To Eternity, released under the alias Parker, was described by DJ Magazine as having thrown “stylistic doors wide open with deliciously pleasing results.”

Ever restless, and with a roving eye when it came to music, Peter moved on and experimented with bass music and remixing. Many of his dubstep remixes went viral in the mid 2000s and in particular his remix of Björk’s Venus as a Boy ended up being chosen by Massive Attack for their Blue Lines anniversary Radio 1 Mix.

As a DJ he gained a reputation as a versatile cross-genre selector, thanks in part to his mixtapes gaining heavy rotation on Ninja Tune’s Solid Steel radio. Peter was voted Bristol’s best DJ in 2010, and ended up performing on stages at Glastonbury, Shambhala (Canada), Big Chill, and Bestival, as well as various clubs around the world.

Determined to evolve as an artist, Peter created Neuropol; a coming together of orchestral sounds and richly textured atmospherics with rhythms that fused elements of hip hop, drum and bass, and footwork. He signed music to Drum & Bass label Shogun Audio, and Om Unit’s Cosmic Bridge imprint. Neuropol was labelled as “standing firm as a bastion of future-thinking UK music” by Radio 1’s Friction.

His restlessness reared its head once more, and Peter soon realised his passions lay with the emotive sounds that fell between the beats. And so, he turned his focus towards creating orchestral compositions that were inspired by his own emotions, life experience, and the natural world.

The thread that has tied this all together is the word ‘Widescreen’. It has been used to describe much of his work regardless of the genre, or the alias it was written under. To Peter it means “emotive, filmic, visual music.”

First Flight

Peter Hall

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