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Danny Peck releases new album, ‘Where Hope Goes, Fear Follows’

By Kath Galasso on September 17, 2024

Known by now under several monikers: dep, A Defiant Heart and most recently, his given name, Danny Peck is an almost perfect hybrid of scientist and musician, actively producing his works and researching the physics of music since the early 90s. Growing up to become a software developer and engineer, Peck always had a keen interest in how music is engineered and become prevalent in both disciplines, to the point where he gave a TEDx lecture in 2012 on “The Anatomy of Electronic Music.” His new album, Where Hope Goes, Fear Follows, however, is a brave eschewing of all this science and concepts. Well, sort of.

With releases in the dozens under dep, A Defiant Heart and Danny Peck, his focus has been on composing and creating using very specific programming, tracking and sequencing. Peck has astonished both the science and music worlds in what he’s been able to achieve with his methods, which come from an engineering brain which is also highly creative.

The results of Peck’s tracker method are an emotive mix of post rock-forward electronic compositions which sound orchestral in nature despite leaning in to more singularly crafted genres like rock and EDM. Now, however, Peck wanted to try something new with both his methods and his sound, and he decided to document it as an album, and hence the concept of Where Hope Goes, Fear Follows was born.

‘Where Hope Goes, Fear Follows’ is about starting over, it’s about growing older and facing one’s intensifying thoughts around legacy and mortality. I made this while going through a lot of changes in my life, and honestly it’s also a lifetime culmination of my own creative process.

I’ve spent the better part of the last 3 decades making music in one form or another. I started experimenting in the 90s, fiddling around with trackers in MS-DOS before I started using notation software in Windows.

Fast forward to 2023: my wife and I moved to a small town in Michigan, and I decided, by both necessity and intuition, that it was time to start over. I built my studio from the ground up, replaced all of my existing software, started over with new hardware and equipment. I kept my trusty Korg piano keyboard, but everything else was a complete reinvention.

I moved on from tracker-driven music making software. For me, this was the key. Tracker sequencers, I realized, forced me into a rigid grid, stifling my creativity, and forcing me down the same path with each song again and again. Everything I made, to me largely sounded and felt the same. I needed a change.

Reading Peck’s musing about the process of how Where Hope Goes, Fear Follows was created, one understand how truly daunting an undertaking this album must have been, and how apt the title truly is. Listening to the finished product, however, most will be able to see and hear why it was the right step for Peck. Still containing his trademark lush sound design and intricate composition, there is something more wild and free about this album, and, for an artist who’s done so much, this has become a seminal work.

Peck has conquered the fear and taken his sound to a new echelon. To quote Peck himself, he “aims this musical arrow directly at the listener’s heart with Where Hope Goes, Fear Follows.

Tracklist:
1. To Rise and Fall
2. We Can Live Underground Forever
3. The Gate
4. Controlled Flight
5. Time is Not Real
6. There Must Be Something Special When We’re Gone
7. Dawn
8. In the Pine Trees
9. The Edge of Reason
10. Where Hope Goes, Fear Follows

Official Website: https://dannypeck.com
Twitter: https://x.com/dep
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/37FUiGEz3Fk0slnaakmELK?si=S3ucrJocTrGMm0_u6vMlBg
Bandcamp: https://dannypeck.bandcamp.com
Youtube Channel: https://youtube.com/DannyPeck

Artist Bio:
I’ve spent the better part of the last 3 decades making music in one form or another. I started experimenting in the 90s, fiddling around with trackers in MS-DOS before I started using notation software in Windows. I spent a lot of time in school involved with band, learning instruments and enjoying the creative process. I even composed a piece for my high school band once.

Into adulthood I continued playing various instruments, and experimenting with both analog and digital gear. Along the way I did some scoring for video games and indie movies. Nothing major, more pet projects that allowed me to keep pushing myself creatively.

In addition to music I’ve been a software programmer professionally since 2001. I think there’s a really interesting intersection between making software and making music, and I’ve been trying to apply lessons and techniques from one to the other over the years. I think in a lot of ways making music is a way to bring balance to my life of writing code which is at its core a very analytical process. I will say though that the process of making music is also highly analytical, and the process of making software is also highly creative.

I released a lot of albums, dozens of them, across many different monikers. I collaborated with other creative friends and professions as well. I always eventually found myself back in the studio alone. It really has always been therapy for me. That’s why for the new album I’m wanting to return to releasing music under my own name, Danny Peck. It’s about stripping away the masks.

Fast forward to 2023. My wife and I moved to a small town in Michigan, and I decided, by both necessity and intuition, that it was time to start over. I built my studio from the ground up, replaced all of my existing software, started over with new hardware and equipment. I kept my trusty Korg piano keyboard, but everything else was a complete reinvention.

I moved on from tracker-driven music making software. For me, this was the key. Tracker sequencers, I realized, forced me into a rigid grid, stifling my creativity, and forcing me down the same path with each song again and again. Everything I made, to me largely sounded and felt the same. I needed a change.

That’s really the impetus of this new album, Where Hope Goes, Fear Follows — It’s about starting over, it’s about growing older and facing one’s intensifying thoughts around legacy and mortality. I made this while going through a lot of changes in my life, and honestly it’s also a lifetime culmination of my own creative process.

Press Quotes:
“The playing and songwriting is stupendous, something that most people strive for and never achieve” – The Ripple Effect

“This is one of the most intricately crafted, introspective and hauntingly beautiful collections of songs I have [heard] in quite some time” – Indie Music Discovery

“Danny Peck is a master at creating music that moves you.” – IMD

“Simply fantastic… Utterly gorgeous.” – GBHBL

“…a multi-genre comprehensive work done mostly with electronic production and made to sound like shoegazey rock; and it is magnificent.” – YourEDM

“Words to describe his musical art, because art it is in the truer sense as he moves beyond assumptions of pure musicianship, dramatic, emotive, sudden, vivid and affecting. It is the evolution of an electronic / symphonic composer that has combined his skills with both synth and string music to seek new soundscapes. Compositions that feel both interior and interpretations of the world around. True cinema.”

“Every track is an ingenious composition wherein you will find new melodies and feelings every time you listen to – again and again and again…”