Peter Hammill is one of the formative characters of the progressive rock scene to date. In the beginning of the 1970's he recorded four cumbersome mysterious albums with his band Van der Graaf Generator which never could reach the commercial heights of cognate bands like Genesis or Yes due to their musical intransigence. After several visionary but difficult to access albums, Hammill reformed the quartet for another four albums which introduced a more earthy but not less complex sound. After the band's second end in 1978, on solo albums like "The Future Now", "ph7" or "A Black Box" Hammill experimented extensively in the studio and acquired the latest techniques like i.e. early forms of sampling; one of the most breath-taking results being the 20 minute long soundscape 'Flight'…
Singer, songwriter, guitarist, and pianist Peter Hammill is a veteran of the rock genre, recording in excess of 40 albums both alone and as a band leader for more than 30 years. A frequent collaborator and friend of Peter Gabriel, Hammill achieved high regard in his native Great Britain and across Europe. Hammill and Gabriel played an important role in the development of progressive rock, leading the art-prog-rock bands Van der Graaf Generator and Genesis respectively and singing in a theatrical, wordy, typically English style…
Peter Hammill has been at it for almost 40 years now, and yet, since the early 2000s, he has been on a new way up, creatively speaking. Clutch (2002) and Incoherence (2004), his previous two studio albums, had both hit high artistic marks, but that is only one of the main reasons why Singularity was so highly anticipated by the fans. It was also the Thin Man's first studio album since remastering his '70s LPs for EMI, his first since the re-formation of his old group, Van der Graaf Generator. Yet, most importantly, especially for a man of words like he is, it was his first studio release since his heart attack two years earlier. Were all the expectations generated by these "firsts" met? Surprisingly, yes. Singularity stands among Hammill's best albums of the past 25 years.
Deluxe three disc (two CDs + DVD) edition of this live release from the Van Der Graaf Generator leader containing the Berlin 1992 concert on two CDs plus a DVD featuring the very same performance…
Peter Hammill again plays the same trick as he did in 1978-1979, when, after the strange, experimental The Future Now LP, came the more straightforward pH7. The same relationship exists between A Black Box and Sitting Targets…