Peter Hammill

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Peter Hammill, 2008

Peter Joseph Andrew Hammill (born November 5, 1948 in Ealing , Middlesex ) is a British composer , songwriter and musician (vocals, guitar, keyboards).

Life

At the age of eight, Peter Hammill was sent to a Jesuit school by his Catholic parents , where he began to be interested in poetry and later also in music. After graduating from school, he worked for six months as a programmer for IBM and in 1967 took the newly introduced course "Liberal Studies in Science" at the University of Manchester . There he met Chris Judge Smith , with whom he founded the progressive rock band Van der Graaf Generator that same year .

In addition to his participation in Van der Graaf Generator, Hammill began an extremely productive solo career that continues to this day, among other things with the support of various VdGG musicians.

In the course of his musical career he experimented with different styles and means of expression that go far beyond rock music.

His LP " Nadir's Big Chance " , released in 1975, anticipated the punk aesthetic and was named as inspiration by Sex Pistols' founder Johnny Rotten .

A collaboration with the Swedish progressive rock band Isildurs Bane began with the IB Expo in Halmstad in 2017 , which resulted in the release of the joint album In Amazonia in 2019 . Guest musician Tim Bowness , who appears with Steven Wilson in the band No-Man , and Koto player Karin Nakagawa also play a major role on the album .

Texts

Peter Hammill's texts can be attributed literary quality. In the early days of his work, up to the mid-1970s, the songs were often dominated by gloomy existential themes, for example in “A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers” by “ Pawn Hearts ” ( Van der Graaf Generator , 1971) or in “The Comet, The Course, The Tail "from In Camera " (1974). In a psychoanalytic manner, Peter Hammill explored the dark sides of the human soul such as fear , loneliness , obsession , madness , even the drive to destroy and die .

At the end of the 1970s, his albums became more personal (" Over ", 1977) and showed a Peter Hammill who deals with the everyday problems of human existence: relationships, sexuality , separations, and time and again the passage of time .

In an interview with the “Bristol Recorder” in September 1980, Peter Hammill was asked about the clichés that were attached to him by parts of the music press, such as “Dr. Doom "or" fear zone ". He wrote on serious topics that touched everyone, whether you admit it or not, he replied. He uses his own feelings for the characters in his songs, but also imagined or fragmented parts of himself. Peter Hammill added that they were lyrics. Most of the time in his private life he is a pretty happy person.

Since the album “ The Future Now ” (1978), it has also been differentiated ecological, social and political issues that Peter Hammill has dealt with, as well as life on tour or the music business and its darker sides.

In his now almost 50-year artistic career, Peter Hammill has demonstrated profound knowledge of contemporary developments in various fields of science , in particular neuro-biology , psychology and philosophy . He was also inspired by the Gaia theory (“Gaia” on “ Fireships ”, 1992) as well as by Zen Buddhism (“A Better Time” on “ X my Heart ”, 1996).

On the album “ Incoherence ” (2004) he devoted himself in a philosophical way to communication by means of language , its possibilities and inadequacies. It is in part inspired by the double-speak in Tony Blair's 2003 Iraq speeches.

Peter Hammill published two books of lyrics, poems and short stories: "Killers, Angels, Refugees" (1974) and "Mirrors, Dreams and Miracles" (1982).

Discography

Studio albums

  • 1971 - Fool's Mate
  • 1973 - Chameleon in the Shadow of the Night
  • 1974 - The Silent Corner and the Empty Stage
  • 1974 - In Camera
  • 1975 - Nadir's Big Chance
  • 1977 - Over
  • 1978 - The Future Now
  • 1979 - PH7
  • 1980 - A Black Box
  • 1981 - Sitting Targets
  • 1982 - Enter K (with K Group)
  • 1983 - Patience (with K Group)
  • 1983 - Loop and Reels: Analogue Experiments 1980-1983
  • 1986 - Skin
  • 1986 - And Close as This
  • 1988 - In a Foreign Town
  • 1988 - Spur of the Moment (with Guy Evans )
  • 1990 - Out of Water
  • 1991 - The Fall of the House of Usher - An Opera by Peter Hammill, libretto by Chris Judge Smith
  • 1992 - Fireships
  • 1993 - The Noise
  • 1993 - Apparently Goldfisch (German versions of already published songs, translated by HR Kunze )
  • 1994 - Roaring Forties
  • 1996 - X my Heart
  • 1996 - Sonix: Hybrid Experiments 1994-1996
  • 1997 - Everyone you Hold
  • 1998 - This
  • 1999 - The Fall of the House of Usher (Deconstructed & Rebuilt)
  • 1999 - The Appointed Hour (with Roger Eno )
  • 2000 - None of the Above
  • 2001 - What, Now?
  • 2001 - Unsung
  • 2002 - clutch
  • 2004 - Incoherence
  • 2006 - Singularity
  • 2009 - Thin Air
  • 2012 - Consequences
  • 2014 - Other World (with Gary Lucas )
  • 2014 - ... all that might have been ...
  • 2017 - From The Trees
  • 2019 - In Amazonia (with Isildurs Bane )

DVD

  • 1992 - In the Passionskirche - Berlin MCMXCII, VHS, 104th min. (DVD 2002), director: Stephan Guntli

Live albums

  • 1985 - The Margin (recorded live in 1983 with K Group)
  • 1990 - Room Temperaturelive (with Stuart Gordon and Nic Potter)
  • 1993 - There Goes the Daylight (live)
  • 1995 - The Peel Sessions (BBC recordings 1974–1988)
  • 1997 - The Union Chapel Concert (with Guy Evans and guests)
  • 1999 - Typical (live recordings from 1992)
  • 2001 - The Margin + (The Margin with bonus CD)
  • 2006 - Veracious (live, with Stuart Gordon)
  • 2011 - PNO GTR VOX (Live Performances)
  • 2011 - PNO GTR VOX BOX - Eighty-Four Live Performances
  • 2016 - Live at Rockpalast (Peter Hammill & The K Group in the Hamburger Markthalle from 1981)
  • 2018 - X / Ten (Live Recordings)
  • 2019 - Not Yet Not Now (8 CD Box Set)

Compilations

  • 1978 - vision
  • 1984 - The Love Songs
  • 1986 - The Essential Collection - 12 Classic Tracks
  • 1993 - The Calm (After the Storm)
  • 1993 - The Storm (Before the Calm)
  • 1996 - After the Show
  • 1997 - Past Go: Collected
  • 2002 - The Thin Man Sings Ballads

As a band member

see discography Van der Graaf Generator

Collaborations

Individual evidence

  1. Peter Hammill. Retrieved November 4, 2019 .
  2. Rock magazine Eclipsed "ISILDURS BANE & PETER HAMMILL - At the Amazon basin with colleagues", June 19, 2019.
  3. Bristol Recorder 9/1980, quoted from www.couchnoise.com Dr. Doom Dies , October 8, 2006
  4. The Independent, June 27, 2004, quoted from www.beatpatrol.com Nick Hasted - “Peter Hammill: Heart Attack Music” (2004) , November 3, 2009

Web links