Peter Hammill

It's hard to explain the enduring appeal of Peter Hammill's music, but maybe it has some connection to the fact that his career has always run on a parallel track somewhere removed from the main sequence of Progressive Rock fashions. At a time when musicians were renowned for their virtuoso chops, Hammill was the notable exception…

Hammill began work on The Fall of the House of Usher back in the early '70s, yet it didn't see the light of day until the early '90s as a hard-to-find European import. He didn't feel it was completely finished until 1991; hence its elongated delay. This rock opera is comprised of six acts, and is based on an Edgar Allan Poe tale with small changes to the story here and there…

Hammill began work on The Fall of the House of Usher back in the early '70s, yet it didn't see the light of day until the early '90s as a hard-to-find European import. He didn't feel it was completely finished until 1991; hence its elongated delay. This rock opera is comprised of six acts, and is based on an Edgar Allan Poe tale with small changes to the story here and there…

As the title suggests, Calm After the Storm is a companion volume to the simultaneously released Storm Before the Calm compilation. But whereas that set highlighted the fiery operatics for which the (predominantly) 1970s-era Hammill was best regarded, this package takes the opposite tack, and isolates the gentle ballads that have always been a major part of his persona…

Spur of the Moment is an album of experimental music by Peter Hammill and Guy Evans, originally released as cassette tape on the Red Hot label. A remastered version was released on CD on the DaTE label in February 1988. The album is currently out of print…

Through the 1970s, Peter Hammill was something of a regular on John Peel's BBC radio show, both solo – recording five sessions – and as a member of Van Der Graaf Generator (seven more). Many of these latter sessions have since seen release, either officially or otherwise; Hammill's solo sessions, on the other hand, have proven very difficult to pin down, with even this collection omitting his first two outings in July 1973 and March 1974…

Peter Hammill's solo work never surpassed the material he helped create with prog giants Van Der Graaf Generator, and in fact he really never came close…

Originally a limited-edition vinyl bootleg released in the late '70s (now one of THE great Hammill collectibles), this soundboard recording of a February 1978 solo show at All Souls Unitarian Church in Kansas City was always the best of the pitifully few live documents available from this most spellbinding of performers. Reissued across two CDs, with six bonus tracks recreating the entire concert, it stands as an essential addition to his canon…

Even longtime diehards will admit that, over the course of 30 solo studio albums, Peter Hammill has occasionally switched on the autopilot – which still ranks him higher than a lot of his contemporaries, but does mean there are occasional bursts where his albums are more or less interchangeable. That is not a problem here. Last time out, Thin Air caught him riding the momentum of the equally spellbinding Van Der Graaf regeneration, and Consequences simply picks up where it left off. Sonically, its closest relative is probably pH7, back at the end of the 1970s…