Virtual Alien

At fourteen, Nick Peterson originated the idea for Virtual Alien, his solitary dark electronic project. Born in 1973, he issued his first dark album, War of Love, in 1988. Struck by a London cab the following year, he spent four months hospitalized after emerging from a coma. Recording resumed in 1990 with King of the World, an album reflecting on the Gulf War. Disappointed by its limited impact, Peterson stepped away from music, enrolled in Dramatic Arts at Kingsway College in London, and later earned an M.A. in Interactive Multimedia from the London College of Printing while founding the art magazine The Edge.

During 2000 he launched the Y2K diary website, which examined Internet culture. The Virtual Alien song “The Way You Make Me Feel” accompanied the site’s debut event and eventually logged 8,000 downloads, prompting MTV Europe to broadcast its video and encouraging Peterson’s return to music. He delivered the Virtual Alien compilation Debut de Siecle in 2001; two years later Virtual Alien Presents: Old Nick appeared, gathering reworked and earlier material. Film scoring came next with the Speed Of Light OST and the Eno-esque Music For Films, both issued in 2007, followed by the 2009 sequel compilation Debut 2. Remove Your Face, another collection that added three new tracks, surfaced in 2015.

Beyond music and publishing, Peterson produced several feature films, among them The Map of the Universe in 2003, The Memos in 2004, and The Y2K Files in 2016. Literary works began with the 2011 novel Closer to the Sun, succeeded in 2015 by The War of Planets 1: The Flight of Moths.