Chilvers is a multi-instrumentalist who favours acoustic piano,
electric piano, laptop computer, assorted keyboards and
fretless bass guitar but also plays
Chapman Stick,
double bass,
acoustic guitar and electric guitar. He is also a
programmer, extending this skill to electronic percussion parts and extensive electronic orchestrations. Chilvers has released four albums under his own name –
He Wrote This (a selection of mostly instrumental pieces played on bass guitars, double bass and Chapman Stick),
Stormwatcher (the soundtrack to an "
imaginary film version" of
Graham Joyce's fantasy novel of the same name),
Free (a
virally marketed CD-R release of predominantly ambient pieces) and
Piano (a collection of solo piano pieces). He is also the leader of A Marble Calm – an ambient-inclined music collective centred on himself and reclusive
marimba/
vibraphone player Jon Hart. Other participants have included
Theo Travis,
Tim Bowness, Sandra O'Neill,
Steve Adey and Cambridge experimental-country guitarist Rob Jackson. This project has released two albums –
Surfacing and
Blue Turns To Grey. Chilvers is the instrumental half of the ambient-folk duo Letka (with singer Sandra O'Neill), which released the album
Far Off Country in 2011. Letka was previously called Alias Grace, and released three previous recordings under that name – the albums
Embers and
Storm Blue Evening and the
Griosach EP. Chilvers is a frequent musical partner of
Tim Bowness (the singer of
No-Man). As Tim Bowness/Peter Chilvers, they released an album of dark reflective ballad songs –
California, Norfolk – and an online only remix CDR,
Overstrand. The two have also worked together as part of the ambient folk band
Samuel Smiles (with Chilvers focussing mostly on piano), the experimental rock band
Henry Fool (with Chilvers concentrating on bass guitar and electric piano), the singer-songwriter/ambient jazz project Slow Electric (with Chilvers on keyboards and atmospherics) and with
The Fierce and the Dead's
Matt Stevens. Chilvers has also collaborated with
No-Man (playing piano for their comeback appearance at the Burning Shed Evening in June 2006, and contributing "space bass" to the album ''Together We're Stranger''). As a collaborator with
Brian Eno, Chilvers has contributed to Eno's
Small Craft on a Milk Sea and
Drums Between the Bells albums and his soundtracks for
The Lovely Bones and
Spore. Chilvers is also credited as "digital archaeologist" on the 2008 David Byrne and Brian Eno album
Everything That Happens Will Happen Today. Chilvers' other musical collaborations include work with songwriter Paul Goodwin and Underworld's
Karl Hyde (for whose live band he plays keyboards). ==Selected discography==