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Peter Hammill: and close as this

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Enigma Records
Released: 1986
Time:
 40:09
Category: Progressive Rock
Producer(s): Peter Hammill
Rating:
Media type: CD
Web address: www.sofasound.com
Appears with: Van der Graaf Generator, David Jackson
Purchase date: 2007.12.10
Price in €: 19,99





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Too Many of My Yesterdays (P.Hammill) - 4:47
[2] Faith (P.Hammill) - 4:27
[3] Empire of Delight (K.Emerson/P.Hammill) - 4:43
[4] Silver (P.Hammill) - 5:31
[5] Beside the One You Love (P.Hammill) - 5:12
[6] Other Old Clichés (P.Hammill) - 4:07
[7] Confidence (P.Hammill) - 6:37
[8] Sleep Now (P.Hammill) - 4:42

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Peter Hammill - Guitar, Keyboards, Vocals, Producer, Performer, Liner Notes, Reissue Producer, Remastering, Reissue Compilation

Paul Ridout - Computers, MIDI
Kathy Bryan - Analogue to Digital Transfers
Mark Powell - Analogue to Digital Transfers, Reissue Producer, Reissue Compilation, Reissue Coordination
Anton Corbijn - Photography
Phil Smee - Packaging

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


1986 CD Enigma D2-73246
1986 LP Virgin 2409
1991 CS Capitol 73246
1991 CD Capitol 73246
1989 CD EMI 2409
2007 CD Car 032782
2007 CD Virgin CDRV 2409

Recorded and mixed at Sofa Sound August 7th - September 15th 1986.

An Album of Mainly Stripped Down Voice and Keyboard Arrangements from the Former Leader of Van Der Graaf Generator. The Album was Originally Released in 1986 on Enigma Records. Keyboards have Been Filtered Through a Computer, Further Updating Sounds Made on his Previous Efforts.



Peter Hammill seems to alternate between releasing unpredictable work (the rock opera The Fall of the House of Usher, the electronic, experimental Loops & Reels, etc.), and his trademark style (straight-ahead arrangements for voice and one other instrument, usually guitar). And Close as This would fall into the former category, since it's comprised exclusively of pure arrangements (in this case, voice and keyboard). It's hard not to be impressed by the emotion in Hammill's voice on the songs "Other Old Clichés" and "Beside the One You Love." And like all of his past work, Hammill will often unite gentle music with sometimes overtly intense vocals ("Too Many Yesterdays"). The keyboards on the album have been filtered through a computer, updating the classic Hammill sound laid-down on his earlier (and best) work, Chameleon In the Shadow of the Night. But Hammill would unfortunately not pursue this style for a while -- his next album, In a Foreign Town, would be the complete opposite of And Close as This, containing overblown production, and an extremely dated '80s sound. And Close as This, however, is one of Hammill's finest.

Greg Prato, All Musioc Guide



A man and his hands. This is Peter Hammill, a man whose history includes the now-legendary Van Der Graaf Generator, a large number of solo recordings and two published works of verse and prose. But it's his written work that permeates Hammill's latest work, And Close As This. His music (played solo on piano and various computerized keys) accents a style of verse that seems to transcend everyday existence. Each word has impact, while blending together in a symphony of emotion that reflects the human soul. Full of imagery, "Too Many Of My Yesterdays," "Empire Of Delight," "Besides The One You Love" and "Confidence" draw you into Hammill's lyrical world of melancholy and exuberence, and all that falls between. And Close As This is the art of songwriting in its purest and simplest form.

cmj.com

 

 L y r i c s


Too Many of My Yesterdays

So many years ago, I thought you were the one -
who knows when people change, surrender into strangeness,
adrift upon their lives, encompassed by the past?
Who knows which one becomes the last goodbye?
Don't try to tell me nothing dies.
Don't try to tell me nothing's changed,
don't try to tell me nothing's new,
too many of my yesterdays belong to you.
        
I shelved my broken heart, I put you from my mind,
I got up from my knees, I picked up all my pieces,
but seeing you again puts shakes into my soul.
Just when I think I'm finally over you,
don't come and show me that's not true.
        
Tell me about it, talk to me - I hear it coming, I feel it coming,
the way you want this thing to be.
You're only trading on our memories
don't go and say you still love me.
        
You're trading on my memories, you're trading in a rosy past;
you know I'm lost on stormy seas...but I still stand before the mast,
beneath the stars and under sail towards horizons out of true....
Behind the dance of seven veils I still see you....
        
Tell me about it, have your way;
I see it coming, I hear it coming,
I know what you're about to say.
You've had too many of my yesterdays,
and I don't want to fall again.
        
Don't try to tell me nothing's changed,
don't try to tell me nothing's new,
too many of my yesterdays are lost in you.


Faith

Each moment is precious
those that I spend with you are a prize -
I count myself lucky just being alive
while you're in my eyes.
        
Seeing's believing and I believe in you
I can't conceal it, just what I feel for you.
Seeing's believing, I know that you'll see me through.
I believe in you
I have faith in you
I put my faith in you.
        
Doubt casts its shadow
on every perfect plan that is made
but I'll be beside you
through those dark days -
I'll be with you come what may.
        
Don't let me down,
now that I've fallen completely for you.


Empire of Delight

Memory extends its empire, holds the frame
but blurs the line.
Some other time invades the sense,
a moment caught and lost, second sight.
Suddenly I feel you near me,
 worlds away and close as this.
One stolen kiss upon my lips and
the moment slips away in mid-flight.
        
So many years ago, and now it's
hard to recall just what you meant to me.
Still I wait, I'm patient,
for the memory comes to me eventually.
Here you are, and though you may soon be gone
somehow the song still burns as bright.
        
I felt it happen here tonight -
here, in the empire of delight.
        
Dream and ghost the world around me,
you seem as real as ever you were...
but in a blur your breath on my cheek
has gone and the evening come into night.
        
So many years ago, and now it's hard
to recall quite what you meant to me.
Still I wait, impatient,
though the memory comes to me eventually.
Here I am, forever caught up in this mystery
and then,
that moment when the fire ignites -
I felt it happen here tonight,
here, in the empire of delight.


Silver

You lay your plans, I take them as they come,
I understand: we dance to different drums.
It's not in any schoolbook,
you're here to teach a lesson to us all...
we play by different rule-books.
What you say, what you do,
they're such different things, which is true?
Now the telephone rings, Mephistopheles calling...
Forty pieces for each lie you've told
I hope your linings as they all unfold are silver.
        
Once we were friends in our idealist days,
still, let's pretend, it's funny in a way
that now our friendship's token
you like to say I owe you everything -
some debts remain unspoken.
Double talk, double standards,
you speak with two tongues, truth's abandoned,
all life has become one-way traffic to lucre.
You take your meetings on the cloth of gold,
just down the river from the lives you've sold for silver.
        
The silver crossed your palm, oh, can you see the future?
I hope you'll know when you sold your soul.
Argente, argent.
        
All the things you've done will carry their own taint
and a day will come when you chorus the complaint
that your friends don't do you fairly;
the back you turned, the shoulders that you shrugged
now fit the blame quite squarely.
What you want, what you need,
your emotional greed all-consuming
but no hearts will bleed and the coffers are empty.
Yes, in the end you'd give it all away,
but on the sockets of your eyes they lay the silver.


Beside the One You Love

You're helpless, entranced by the magical
touch of her skin against yours, adrift -
what else is there but this?
It feels so sweet
to fall asleep
beside the one you love
        
Remember this fireside, this quiet room,
embers now flickering their last, like ghosts
and still she holds you close.
Who else could know
such afterglow
beside the one you love?
        
Someday the memory will come again
as vivid as sensation now  and then
there'll be no 'why?' or 'when?'.
Who else could do
these things to you
beside the one you love?
        
It feels so sweet
to fall asleep
beside the one you love.


Other Old Clichés

 might as well give you all there is,
I might as well take it all the way:
what's gone is forgotten, and anyway
surely words alone could not wreck your day?
The cake's not worth the candle, so they say....
'Nothing ventured, nothing gained, no hard feelings'...
other old cliches.
        
I've held back my feelings for so long
while clutching at straws in the caravan -
I'll say what I must and take it like a man.
I've fixed my grin, I've raised a laugh,
and after the back's been broken by the waiting game....
'Mustn't grumble, can't complain, no hard feelings',
other old cliches.
        
Suddenly I see the scales falling from your eyes -
this revelation surely comes as no surprise?
Well, what d'you want? What d'you expect?
What do you say?
        
Can it really be so predictable?
Now all of the secrets are given away,
what words of forgiveness are there left to say?
Hold me now, don't let go,
hold me, soon there comes a price I cannot pay,
I take the words back straight away:
'I'm so sorry, I didn't mean it',
beg forgiveness, beg and pray....
blind self-pity,
other old cliches.

Confidence

Behind the smile of confidence
somewhere you'll find the wanted man
blank-faced and wary of conversation with himself.
Around the ring of confidence
they're dancing to a different tune;
the others seem so confident, why don't you take a leaf
from the storm we're passing through?
In confidence we sail across the seven seas
to hide behind the veil - in confidence the key!
'I'm in good form, I'm feeling fine,'
responsibly how well you do -
there's nothing I can say about
the usual cocktail of public faith and private taboo.
In confidence the trick is there for all to see -
In confidence the key!
        
Oh, don't anyone let the cat out of the bag,
don't anyone admit to human frailty.
Someone let the cat out of the bag.
Confidentially we learn we're not alone,
in lack of confidence we're not alone.
        
Behind the smile of confidence
somewhere you'll find the mortal man
waving his arms in some urgent secret semaphore....
So I'll face the world with confidence,
I'll toughen up my point of view,
what better way to live a life,
what other way can there be of seeing this thing through?
In confidence the trick, in confidence the game,
the thing that makes us tick -
in confidence the flame!
        
Inside the ring of confidence
somewhere you'll find a stone-age man
lost in the forest with darkness falling,
striking his flint to hold back
the roaring, the alien, the world.
        
We are not alone.


Sleep Now

Sleep now:
another day in your young lives is done,
go to sleep now
Ttomorrow brave new worlds
will surely come,and trouble deep;
you're such a wonder, such a mystery to me.
        
Somewhere
your future friends are lying as you are
and your lovers
right now are only crying babes in arms
oh, the world turns under our feet,
our lives are passing by
in our sleep.
        
So soon you'll be gone to that wide world
the tunes of adulthood calling little girls.
        
Remember,
whatever else in life you find to doubt,
do remember,
although you hear him mostly in a shout,
your father loves you
as though he never knew the meaning of the words until just now.
        
So soon you'll be gone to that wide world
one tune of childhood I sing my little girls....
        
Sleep now,
one day I'll tell you how my life has been.
Oh, so strange
to think your eyes will fall on things
that mine have never seen, these eyes that gently flicker
in some lost childhood dream.
Sleep now,
safe and warm in the haven of your bed,
go to sleep now....
Although you won't remember what I've said,
your father loves you
as though he never knew the meaning of the words until just now,
as though he never knew the meaning of the words.

 M P 3   S a m p l e s


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