''And Close As This'' is the 15th 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 Virgin Records in 1986. Each track is a song played and sung by Hammill solo at a keyboard, with the keyboard parts played in a single take. Two of the songs use a

grand piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

as the keyboard instrument; for the others, Hammill plays a

MIDI MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and re ...

master keyboard, using it to trigger a variety of MIDI sound modules, mainly

electric piano An electric piano is a musical instrument which produces sounds when a performer presses the keys of a piano-style musical keyboard. Pressing keys causes mechanical hammers to strike metal strings, metal reeds or wire tines, leading to vibrations ...

and

organ Organ may refer to: Biology * Organ (biology), a part of an organism Musical instruments * Organ (music), a family of keyboard musical instruments characterized by sustained tone ** Electronic organ, an electronic keyboard instrument ** Hammond ...

sounds. Keith Emerson collaborated as composer for the song "Empire of Delight" but did not play on the album.

Track listing

All songs written by Hammill, except where indicated: # "Too Many of My Yesterdays" – 4:47 # "Faith" – 4:27 # "Empire of Delight" (Hammill,

Keith Emerson Keith Noel Emerson (2 November 1944 – 11 March 2016) was an English keyboardist, songwriter, and record producer. He played keyboards in a number of bands before finding his first commercial success with the Nice in the late 1960s. He became ...

) – 4:43 # "Silver" – 5:31 # "Beside the One You Love" – 5:12 # "Other Old Clichés" – 4:07 # "Confidence" – 6:37 # "Sleep Now" – 4:42

Personnel

* Peter Hammill –

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

Master keyboard

Technical

* Peter Hammill - recording engineer, mixing (Sofa Sound, Bath) * Paul Ridout – computers,

* Arun Chakraverty – original mastering *

Anton Corbijn Anton Johannes Gerrit Corbijn van Willenswaard (; born 20 May 1955) is a Dutch photographer, film director and music video director. He is the creative director behind the visual output of Depeche Mode and U2,Pitman, Joanna"The silent partner"' ...

– photography *

Phil Smee Philip Lloyd-Smee is an English music journalist, designer and record collector, most widely known for designing music album covers and his Bam-Caruso music label, best known for the Rubble series of albums. Much of Smee's design work was done f ...

– packaging

References

External links

Lyrics
on Hammill's Sofa Sound website {{DEFAULTSORT:And Close As This Peter Hammill albums 1986 albums Virgin Records albums