Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Artist: Hammill, Peter
Label: Esoteric Antenna
Release: 2014
Rating: 4.5/5
Van Der Graaf Generator vocalist (and guitarist and piano player when needed) Peter Hammill and American guitarist Gary Lucas are, at first glance, a pretty odd pair of collaborators, since if you compare their musical careers, they’ve got very little in common. Lucas, a former Grammy nominee, is an acclaimed film and TV composer. In his solo career he’s put out more than 20 albums (still a mere ‘snack’ for Hammill, who has racked up more than 30 studio efforts so far), and he’s also known for working with the legendary and sadly late avant-garde master Captain Beefheart (when Beefheart was already nearing the end of his colorful career), and he once sharpened his guitar chops alongside the (also late) Jeff Buckley. Even though both musicians have an extremely wide musical range, Lucas’s guitar playing mostly stems from blues, though psychedelic rock, jazz and classical are no strangers to him, while prog rock pioneer Hammill cultivates a rather different songwriting tradition, not to mention his peculiar guitar playing, which is no virtuoso art but rests mainly on free improvisation.
Hammill, a vocal thunderer schooled in a Jesuit choir, who created some of the best albums in the history of prog rock with the legendary Van Der Graaf Generator, is a musician cut from completely different cloth than his latest musical buddy, but unusual collaborations like this usually produce the best records. Their paths crossed years ago, which is also when the idea of working together first popped up, but it took them quite a while for their shared songwriting ideas to fall on fertile ground in the form of their first joint project, »Other World«, an achievement that belongs equally to both artists.
Hammill, who besides singing also plays his recognizable guitar improvisations here and there, and Lucas, who played the bulk of the guitar lines, open their first joint effort in a really pleasant and almost innocent way, with gentle guitar chords and a melancholy vocal approach directed by the legendary VDGG thunderer. All of that can be heard on the opening track »Spinning Coins«. But for every lovely, calmly arranged song, the album has one total avant-garde-psychedelic freak-out, so »Other World« floats somewhere between ethereal and chaotic the whole time. The old cat wouldn’t be an authority on the musical avant-garde if he didn’t deliver a pretty brutal contrast, and that’s »Some Kind of Fracas«, which, thanks to dissonant guitar improvisations and effects, sounds like a byproduct of some nightmare in the middle of one of Hammill’s post-apocalyptic worlds. »Of Kith & Kin«, on the other hand, has almost elegiacally beautiful acoustic guitar arrangements that fit Peter’s unusually calm vocal approach practically perfectly.
On »Cash« Hamill shows off his chameleonic vocal performance more distinctly for the first time, swinging back and forth between ‘heaven and hell’ while elegant guitar passages accompany him in the background. »Built From Scratch« is a psychedelic-avant-garde instrumental where both cult musicians improvise like crazy with unusual guitar lines. The remarkable diversity and experimental streak of these two experimental visionaries shines through at every turn, most obviously on tracks like »Attair of Roses«, where ambient music with soft guitar improvisations reigns, the country guitar on »This Is Showbliz«, the avant-garde and psychedelic influences on »Reboot« or the fusion on »Black Ice«. On »Other World« you can hear lots of different musical worlds and most of the influences from both masters’ careers, though Hammill’s songwriting and arranging stamp is still the dominant one. It’s also always fun when an English and an American composer end up on the same record, both with strong personalities and a distinct vision, since they’ve always represented two completely different takes on music, and yet on individual ideas they click brilliantly, complement each other and squeeze the best qualities out of one another. Lucas is admittedly a superb guitarist who fully deserves all the recognition he’s gotten so far, but Hammill, with his distinctive vocal flights, makes it clear the whole time who the living musical (vocal and songwriting) legend on this project is.
Even after his run-in with Gary Lucas on »Other World«, fans of Hammill’s solo career will find plenty to be happy about while listening to this joint project, because the legendary vocal thunderer has created yet another album whose intense atmosphere won’t leave a single fan of experimental music cold, rooted in the days when prog rock was still young. At the same time, it successfully fuses in the ideas of a superb musical partner, which means that Peter’s individual songwriting ideas, with the addition of Lucas’s stamp, show up in a completely new light. For a musician who forges studio albums almost every year, any refreshing change in sound is surely a hugely valuable and enjoyable experience, especially at such a venerable age, when most of his musical peers have nothing particularly smart left to show, let alone anything innovative.
Line-up
Peter Hammill – vocals, guitar
Gary Lucas – guitar
Production
Peter Hammill
Tracklist
1. Spinning Coins
2. Some Kind of Fracas
3. Of Kith & Kin
4. Cash
5. Built from Scratch
6. Attar of Roses
7. This is Showbiz
8. Reboot
9. Black Ice
10. The Kid
11. Glass
12. 2 Views
13. Means to an End
14. Slippery Slope
