Incoherence (album)
''Incoherence'' is the 30th studio album by Peter Hammill, released on his Fie! label in March 2004. ''Incoherence'' is a concept album about language, containing 14 tracks with soft transitions between them. The album was produced and played by Hammill himself, with contributions from Stuart Gordon on violin and David Jackson on flute and saxophones. ''Incoherence'' is recognized by critics as ambitious and one of Hammill's major works. Production and instrumentation ''Incoherence'' is Hammill's fourth (either with Van der Graaf Generator or solo) long piece of music with continuous transitions between sections which can be identified as single songs. At 41 minutes, however, it is twice as long as the earlier examples, "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers" (1971 with Van der Graaf Generator), "Flight" (1980) and "A Headlong Stretch" (1994). Musically, the 14 sections vary widely from calm, harmonic songs to difficult and highly demanding sections, tied together by Hammill's un ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Peter Hammill
Peter Joseph Andrew Hammill (born 5 November 1948) is an English musician and recording artist. He was a founder member of the progressive rock band Van der Graaf Generator. Best known as a singer/songwriter, he also plays guitar and piano and produces his own recordings and occasionally those of other artists. In 2012, he was recognised with the Visionary award at the first Progressive Music Awards. Biography Early life Peter Hammill was born in Ealing, West London, and moved with his family to Derby when he was 12. He attended Beaumont College and Manchester University, where he studied Liberal Studies in Science. Hammill has stated that his grandfather was originally from Pakistan. Early career Hammill's solo career has coexisted with Van der Graaf Generator's activities. The band was offered a contract by Mercury Records in 1968, that only Hammill signed. When Van der Graaf Generator broke up in 1969 he wanted to record his first solo album. In the summer of 1969 Hammill h ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Art Rock
Art rock is a subgenre of rock music that generally reflects a challenging or avant-garde approach to rock, or which makes use of modernist, experimental, or unconventional elements. Art rock aspires to elevate rock from entertainment to an artistic statement, opting for a more experimental and conceptual outlook on music."Art Rock" Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 15 December 2011. Influences may be drawn from genres such as , avant-garde music, classical musi ...
[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Clutch (Peter Hammill Album)
''Clutch'' is the 29th studio album by Peter Hammill Peter Joseph Andrew Hammill (born 5 November 1948) is an English musician and recording artist. He was a founder member of the progressive rock band Van der Graaf Generator. Best known as a singer/songwriter, he also plays guitar and piano and ..., released on his Fie! label in 2002. ''Clutch'' contains nine tracks played exclusively on acoustic guitar with accompaniments on saxophones and other instruments. The album was produced and played by Hammill himself, with contributions from Stuart Gordon on violin and David Jackson on flute and saxes. In the liner notes he states that even though the instrumentation is mostly acoustic, it is not a "folk" album. As usual a lot of the songs deal with dark subject matter and his vocals are quite intense in places. The liner notes say "the palette is restricted but the canvas is broad". Track listing All tracks composed by Peter Hammill # "We Are Written" 3:57 # "Crossed Wires ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Singularity (Peter Hammill Album)
''Singularity'' is the 31st studio album by Peter Hammill, released on his own Fie! Records label in December 2006. The album was the first Hammill recorded after suffering a heart attack in 2003. Some of the songs ("Our Eyes Give It Shape", "Event Horizon") refer directly to his brush with death. Others address questions of mortality in related ways ("Meanwhile My Mother" is about his mother's decline, "Friday Afternoon" about the untimely death of his piano tuner). Unlike most recent Hammill albums, ''Singularity'' is a completely solo effort, i.e. it was written, played and produced entirely by him. It has been hailed by some as one of his best albums since the 1980s.Mike Barnes, ''Life Sentences''. Wire, March 2007. pp. 34-41 The cover was again designed by frequent Hammill collaborator Paul Ridout. Using a photo by Dinu and playing with the term "Singularity" it shows Peter's face on the back cover a second time as a mirror-image. Track listing All songs written by P ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Concept Album
A concept album is an album whose tracks hold a larger purpose or meaning collectively than they do individually. This is typically achieved through a single central narrative or theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, or lyrical. Sometimes the term is applied to albums considered to be of "uniform excellence" rather than an LP with an explicit musical or lyrical motif. There is no consensus among music critics as to the specific criteria for what a "concept album" is. The format originates with folk singer Woody Guthrie's ''Dust Bowl Ballads'' (1940) and was subsequently popularized by traditional pop/jazz singer Frank Sinatra's 1940s–50s string of albums, although the term is more often associated with rock music. In the 1960s several well-regarded concept albums were released by various rock bands, which eventually led to the invention of progressive rock and rock opera. Since then, many concept albums have been released across numerous musical genres. Definiti ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
David Jackson (rock Musician)
David Nicholas George Jackson (born 15 April 1947), nicknamed Jaxon, is an English progressive rock saxophonist, flautist, and composer. He is best known for his work with the band Van der Graaf Generator and his work in Music and Disability. He has also worked with Peter Gabriel, Keith Tippett, Osanna, Judge Smith, David Cross and others. Van der Graaf Generator Jackson was a member of the English progressive rock band Van der Graaf Generator for most of the 1970s and for their 2005 reunion tour. His speciality was then electric saxophones, using octave devices, wah-wah and powerful amplification. Style His saxophone-playing is characterized by the frequent use of double horns, playing two saxophones at the same time, a style he copied from Rahsaan Roland Kirk (whose style and technique influenced Jackson). He also plays flutes and whistles. In the ''NME'', reviewer Jonathan Barnett called David Jackson "the Van Gogh of the saxophone – a renegade impressionist, dispensing d ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
A Plague Of Lighthouse Keepers
"A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers" is a song by the English rock band Van der Graaf Generator, from their fourth album ''Pawn Hearts'' (1971). It is a concept piece over 23 minutes long, which comprises the whole B-side of the album. "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers" evolved in the studio, recorded in small sections and pieced together during mixing. The song has many changes in time signature and key signature, and even incorporates some musique concrète. Recording "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers" was recorded at intervals between gigs. It was recorded in small sections that were pieced together during mixing, and it took about three to four months to record, non-continuous. According to producer John Anthony, the track features a lot more studio experimentation than on previous albums, saying "we pushed the facilities at Trident to the limit and had involved the use of every single tape machine in Trident at some stage." The experiments included tape manipulation and Hugh Banto ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Van Der Graaf Generator
Van der Graaf Generator are an English progressive rock band, formed in 1967 in Manchester by singer-songwriters Peter Hammill and Judge Smith, Chris Judge Smith and the first act signed by Charisma Records. They did not experience much commercial success in the UK, but became popular in Italy during the 1970s. In 2005 the band reformed, and are still musically active with a line-up of Hammill, organist Hugh Banton and drummer Guy Evans. The band formed at the University of Manchester, but settled in London where they signed with Charisma. They went through several incarnations in their early years, including a brief split in 1969. When they reformed, they found minor commercial success with ''The Least We Can Do Is Wave to Each Other'' (released in early 1970 and their only album to chart in the UK), and after the follow-up album, ''H to He, Who Am the Only One'' (December 1970), stabilised around a line-up of Hammill, Banton, Evans and saxophonist David Jackson (rock musician) ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
A Black Box
''A Black Box'' is the ninth studio album by Peter Hammill, originally released on S-Type Records in August 1980. Hammill performed nearly all the instrumentation himself, including the drum parts, a task he had first undertaken on his previous album '' pH7''. His ex-Van der Graaf Generator colleague David Jackson also made a guest appearance, along with David Ferguson of the new-wave band Random Hold, whose debut album Hammill had produced. Side 1 of the record featured a collection of songs, while side 2 was devoted to "Flight", a lengthy multi-section song. This was the first time Hammill had included a lengthy song of this type on one of his solo albums. The short-lived S-Type label (the name was a pun on "stereo-type"), on which the album was originally released, was set up by Hammill and his then manager Gail Colson. Colson had formerly been a director at Hammill's previous record company, Charisma Records, who had dropped him from their roster just prior to the recordi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Roaring Forties (album)
''Roaring Forties'' is the 21st studio album by Peter Hammill, released on his own Fie! label in 1994. It, and the following album, '' X My Heart'', are Hammill's most recent albums that primarily contain an organic, full-band rock style. While there are occasional tracks on later albums in this style, Hammill's principal mode has moved since this album towards a more intimate, chamber-music style. The Roaring Forties is a name given, especially by sailors, to the latitudes between 40°S and 50°S, so called because of the boisterous and prevailing westerly winds. The album also contains "A Headlong Stretch", one of Hammill's occasional long, episodic song suites (see also "A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers" from ''Pawn Hearts'' and "Flight" from ''A Black Box''). Track listing All tracks composed by Peter Hammill #"Sharply Unclear" - 5:42 #"The Gift of Fire (Talk Turkey)" - 8:31 #"You Can't Want What You Always Get" - 9:36 #"A Headlong Stretch" - 19:32 #*"Up Ahead" #*"Continental D ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Wiltshire
Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire to the north, Oxfordshire to the northeast and Berkshire to the east. The county town was originally Wilton, after which the county is named, but Wiltshire Council is now based in the county town of Trowbridge. Within the county's boundary are two unitary authority areas, Wiltshire and Swindon, governed respectively by Wiltshire Council and Swindon Borough Council. Wiltshire is characterised by its high downland and wide valleys. Salisbury Plain is noted for being the location of the Stonehenge and Avebury stone circles (which together are a UNESCO Cultural and World Heritage site) and other ancient landmarks, and as a training area for the British Army. The city of Salisbury is notable for its medieval cathedral. Swindon is the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Tony Blair
Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of the Opposition from 1994 to 1997, and had served in various shadow cabinet posts from 1987 to 1994. Blair was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007. He is the second longest serving prime minister in modern history after Margaret Thatcher, and is the longest serving Labour politician to have held the office. Blair attended the independent school Fettes College, and studied law at St John's College, Oxford, where he became a barrister. He became involved in Labour politics and was elected to the House of Commons in 1983 for the Sedgefield constituency in County Durham. As a backbencher, Blair supported moving the party to the political centre of British politics. He was appointed to Neil Kinnock's shadow cabinet ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |