Peter Perrett - How The West Was Won flac album

Peter Albert Neil Perrett was born on 8 April 1952 in Camberwell, south London, Perrett's father was first a police officer in post-war Palestine and then a builder, and his mother was an Austrian Jew. Perrett attended boarding school, where he was expelled at the age of 15 for rebellious behaviour  . In April 2017, Perrett announced his debut solo album, How the West Was Won, released on 30 June by Domino. Also on Domino, a second solo album was released on June 7 2019, titled Humanworld Personal life.

Peter Perrett - former frontman of The Only Ones - releases his debut solo album How The West Was Won. Perrett, whose incisive songcraft and sardonic drawl made him one of the most distinctive voices of the Seventies hasn’t released any music for 20 years. Bearing in mind his most famous song began I always flirt with death (The Only Ones‘ Another Girl, Another Planet), this is one comeback that nobody saw coming.

Luckily for all involved, Perrett cleaned up in the mid-2010s and got it together enough to record and release his first solo album. Working with his sons (guitarist Jamie and bassist Peter, J. and producer Chris Kimsey, he's made an album that's not only a welcome return from a prodigal son, but also one that compares very favorably with those made during his time with the Only Ones

It sets a high standard that the rest of How the West Was Won matches and occasionally betters. The songwriting is polished and his band – essentially a repurposed version of his sons’ outfit Strangefruit – is tight, without ever losing a sense of louche character. The overriding theme isn’t redemption ( It’s too late for repentance of sins, he sings at one point) so much as survival against the odds, a topic that he addresses with clear eyes and without self-pity.

Complete your Peter Perrett collection. It’s the first real solo album from this 65 year old British artist best known for his stint in The Only Ones. Perrett really finds his stride here, delivering an album with a magically daedal infusion of subtly brilliant tones. His unique, sleepy-slurred sneer of a voice somehow comes across as realistically compassionate and endearing, creating an immediately captivating aura. The guitars, played by son Jamie Perrett, are relatively understated; which makes their presence all the more powerful every time they rise up with a warm, muscular intensity.

Q&A PETER PERRETT How are you? Great. And having some new music to talk about is even better than just talking about the old days, which is like ancient history, two or three lifetimes ago. It feels like I’m starting off on a new adventure. The album sounds like that – it’s not a valedictory whimper. Consequently, songs like How The West Was Won where there’s lots of syllables in quick succession, or a ess song like Something in My Brain, I have to do in a half-spoken conversational delivery. If I’m going to sing more, like on An Epic Story, it’s got more space, so I have to pace myself. I feel like what I’ve done before, that was a different person. I feel like this is the first album that I’m making. That’s why I’m doing it with passion. And I feel that I’ve been able to control things better.

Like a punk Kevin Rowland, Peter Perrett is one we almost lost. Since The Only Ones split in 1982, singer Perrett has descended into bouts of heroin and crack-induced reclusiveness that would last decades at a time; his debut solo album emerges as Perrett hits 65, twenty-one years after his last album with The Ones. And while its takes on classic swing, psych country and postpunk pop are understandably fragile and lacking wallop – an inevitable consequence of age and getting your kids in your backing band – How The West Was Won is shot through with a wonderfully wry reinvigoration