Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
Memory can be an alien feeling, a series of synaptic misfires in which what you remember, perhaps selectively, is not the whole story; the blanks are filled into your advantage and the medicine of regret taken half-heartedly and with a grimace.
Memory can also be a cathartic beast, especially when used as an artistic expression in music, poetry, literature or art; it can be useful to in the endeavour of creation and is far more productive to the soul than the initial outburst of anger that comes from certain situations. The sombre and sober reflection casting its eye over the words, the stroke of paintbrush or the shrewd addition to a multitude of musical notes are memory enhanced and in Peter Harrison’s debut E.P., Memory and Remedy, recall and recollection have a new champion in which to listen to and admire.
What Peter Harrison has managed to do in the space of four songs is to play with remembrance as a construct, a sort of memorial to the fallen scattered ashes of youth and made them glimmer in the darkness of dwindling degeneration; he has allowed them one final flourish in which to take flight before hopefully destroying them forever.
That action of allowing a final burst of life, to celebrate even the harshest of events is perhaps arguably the best medicine in which to expel bad memories from the mind. There is perhaps nothing you can do about something that has happened in life that cannot be commemorated in song, words or in a piece of art and for the pleasing pathos that Peter Harrison employs throughout all four songs, commemoration and downbeat memorial go hand in hand.
Whether in the absorbing Decay, the exquisite feel of Rivers Of Gold or Mother, I Didn’t Lie, Peter Harrison has found something in which to lay tribute at the feet of the past and walk away with head held high. It is a magnificent effort of talent and will over seeming adversity and Memory and Remedy has perhaps never been more far-sighted in the approach of healing any human heart.
Ian D. Hall