'This' is the fortieth album for which Peter Hammill
has been responsible...some would say guilty. It is released on the eve
of his fiftieth birthday, after thirty years of music making. The
seven songs(and three instrumental 'fragments') on 'This' mark a clear
statement of intent to continue pushing at
boundaries within the overall context of The Song. Many features of the
soundscape will be familiar to those who have
followed Peter's music over the years: shape-shifting changes of mood and
temperature; lots of "how did we get here from there;" instrumental colouring
by turns delicate and brutal; trademark washes
of backing vocals; the juxtaposition of the tightly arranged and the purely
improvised. Instrumental contributors are his long-term
cohorts Stuart Gordon (violin),Manny Elias (percussion)
and David Jackson (saxes and flute). The lead voice is, as always, insistently
to the fore, with the passing of time and
rites of passage remaining the central lyrical concerns.
To some, Peter is barking mad; to others, an eccentric of genius. What
is clear is that his appetite for
the fray remains undiminished. Moments here such as the guitar-driven
nastiness of 'Always is
Next,' the languorous development of 'The Light Continent' or the piano-based
meditation on
parenthood of 'Since the Kids' offer proof that This has not stopped
yet....
PH Tour Dates in December:
8th Brussels
10th Dortmund
11th somewhere-near Chemnitz?
12th Prague
13th Berlin
15th Freiburg
16th Frankfurt
17th tba
18th Saasrbrucken
19th Mannheim**
20th Hanburg**
** These two are a tad bizarre, 45-minute sets supptorting Georges
