Van Der Graaf Generator H To He, Who Am The Only One

A lavish deluxe 20 disc boxed set comprising 17 CDs and 3 Blu Ray discs covering Van der Graaf Generator’s entire recorded work for Charisma Records. Between the years 1970 – 1978 the band released 8 albums (two under the name Van der Graaf) for the legendary Charisma label. Each record was ground breaking and the influence of the band’s unique music would be felt in the ensuing decades by artists of many different musical genres. This boxed set features all of their Charisma albums newly re-mastered from the first generation master tapes and much more.

A lavish deluxe 20 disc boxed set comprising 17 CDs and 3 Blu Ray discs covering Van der Graaf Generator’s entire recorded work for Charisma Records. Between the years 1970 – 1978 the band released 8 albums (two under the name Van der Graaf) for the legendary Charisma label. Each record was ground breaking and the influence of the band’s unique music would be felt in the ensuing decades by artists of many different musical genres. This boxed set features all of their Charisma albums newly re-mastered from the first generation master tapes and much more.

The sad fact about box sets is that there's always a fan out there who thinks they could have compiled a better one. An even sadder fact is that they're often correct, and the very notion of anthologizing Van Der Graaf Generator was a fraught one for that very reason. More, perhaps, than any other band of the early-'70s prog era, VDGG polarized their fans as much as the band's blatantly inhospitable sound outraged outsiders. They cut just eight studio albums, and all eight possess a wholly different character, all the more so since the band actually broke up midway through the sequence…

The sad fact about box sets is that there's always a fan out there who thinks they could have compiled a better one. An even sadder fact is that they're often correct, and the very notion of anthologizing Van Der Graaf Generator was a fraught one for that very reason. More, perhaps, than any other band of the early-'70s prog era, VDGG polarized their fans as much as the band's blatantly inhospitable sound outraged outsiders. They cut just eight studio albums, and all eight possess a wholly different character, all the more so since the band actually broke up midway through the sequence. Past compilations, then, sensibly dealt with one or other of those eras – The Box, contrarily, swallows the entire beast whole, 34 tracks over four stuffed discs, and it gets full marks for courage, whatever its other sins may be. …

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…