''A Black Box'' is the ninth 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 ...

, 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 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 commerc ...

colleague David Jackson also made a guest appearance, along with David Ferguson of the new-wave band

Random Hold Random Hold were a British rock band, originally active between 1977 and 1980, with a reformed band under the same name active between 1981 and 1982. History The first line-up featured David Ferguson (keyboards) and David Rhodes (guitar and voc ...

, 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 Gail Colson is a retired music manager, whose company Gailforce Management Ltd. represented clients including Peter Gabriel (until December 1989), The Pretenders, Morrissey (briefly), Alison Moyet and Peter Hammill. Colson initially worked as per ...

. Colson had formerly been a director at Hammill's previous record company,

Charisma Records Charisma Records (also known as The Famous Charisma Label) was a British record label founded in 1969 by former journalist Tony Stratton-Smith. He had previously acted as manager for rock bands such as The Nice, the Bonzo Dog Band and Van der ...

, who had dropped him from their roster just prior to the recording of ''A Black Box''. The S-Type label does not appear to have been a successful business project, and the album was later licensed to

Virgin Records Virgin Records is a record label owned by Universal Music Group. It originally founded as a British independent record label in 1972 by entrepreneurs Richard Branson, Simon Draper, Nik Powell, and musician Tom Newman. It grew to be a worldwid ...

, who have since also acquired Hammill's Charisma catalogue.

Track listing

All songs written by

, except where noted.

Personnel

*Peter Hammill – vocals, guitar, keyboards, drums, bass * David Jackson –

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to pr ...

, flute on 4 and 8 *David Ferguson –

synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

and

tambourine The tambourine is a musical instrument in the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zills". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though ...

on 4, 6 and 7

Technical

*Peter Hammill - recording engineer (Sofa Sound, Wiltshire) * David Lord – mixing (Crescent Studios, Bath)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Black Box, A Peter Hammill albums 1980 albums