..:: audio-music dot info ::..


Main Page     The Desert Island     Copyright Notice
Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Ww Xx Yy Zz


Peter Hammill: Chameleon in the Shadow of the Night

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Virgin Records
Released: 1973
Time:
 68:17
Category: Progressive Rock
Producer(s): John Anthony
Rating:
Media type: CD
Web address: www.sofasound.com
Appears with: Van der Graaf Generator, David Jackson
Purchase date: 2010.03.15
Price in €: 2,00





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] German Overalls (P.Hammill) - 7:05
[2] Slender Threads (P.Hammill) - 5:00
[3] Rock and Rôle (P.Hammill) - 6:40
[4] In the End (P.Hammill) - 7:24
[5] What's It Worth (P.Hammill) - 4:04
[6] Easy to Slip Away (P.Hammill) - 5:23
[7] Dropping the Torch (P.Hammill) - 4:11
[8] (In The) Black Room/The Tower (P.Hammill) - 11:21

Bonus Tracks:
[9] Rain 3am (P.Hammill) - 4:49
[10] Easy to Slip Away [live] (P.Hammill) - 4:51
[11] In the End [live] (P.Hammill) - 7:23

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Peter Hammill - Acoustic & Electric Guitar, Conductor, Harmonium, Electric & Grand Piano, Vocals, Mellotron, Liner Notes, Compilation, Digital Remastering, Reissue Preparation, Bird Calls

Hugh Banton - Organ, Piano, Banshee, Pedal Bass
Guy Evans - Cymbals, Drums
David P. Jackson - Flute, Alto & Tenor Saxophone, Screams
Nic Potter - Bass

John Anthony - Conductor, Producer

Rodney Sofa - Engineer, Archive Research
David Hentschel - Engineer
Pat Morahan - Engineer
Kathy Bryan - Transfers
Phil Smee - Package Design
Paul Whitehead - Original Cover Artwork
 

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


1973 LP Charisma CAS 1067
2007 CD EMI/Virgin 68788
2007 CD Crc 704352

Original album released as Charisma CAS 1067 in 1973. Recorded in February and March 1973 at Sofa Sound, Sussex and Rockfield Studios, Monmouthshire. Mixed at Trident Studios, London W1. Digital remastering at Sofa Sound. Analogue to digital transfers at Abbey Road Studios, London. Grateful thanks to Cary Anning at Abbey Road Tape Library and to Paschal Byrne and Ben Wiseman at The Audio Archiving Company for their invaluable help.

2006 Issued Digitally Remastered Edtion of Hammill's Second Solo Album that was Originally Released in 1973. The Original Eight Tracks have Been Augmented with Three More that Didn't Appear on the Original LP Issue: "Rain 3am", "Easy to Slip Away (Kansas)" and "in the End (Kansas)".



Boasting much stronger compositions than the preceding Fools Mate, Chameleon In the Shadow of the Night is regarded as one of Peter Hammill's best albums. Although Hammill is still in piano/acoustic guitar mode, the passion in his vocals is nearly unparalleled. But what separated Hammill from other early-'70s folk-rockers was that he had a knack for injecting art rock into his compositions and singing his mellow songs in a rough (rather expectedly laid-back) style. The opening track "German Overalls" could be compared to David Bowie's early acoustic period, as well as "What's It Worth" (the latter containing flute work that complements Hammill's acoustic strumming nicely). But Hammill successfully slips back into rock territory with "Rock and Rôle," which contains some great, dirty sax work. The album's production is very straightforward (nearly without any studio enhancement), which helps bring out the intensity of Hammill's stark arrangements. Chameleon In the Shadow of the Night could fall into the concept album category, since the theme of growing old seems to be repeated throughout.

Greg Prato - All Music Guide



The long-awaited remastering of the Peter Hammill/Van Der Graaf Generator catalog got off to a powerful start, almost overloading the team's earliest albums with spicy bonus tracks, unreleased gems, and unimagined treasures. Unfortunately, fans' expectations might have been overloaded as well. Chameleon in the Shadow of the Night, Hammill's second solo album, still stands among his most archetypal collections, with the schizophrenic duel between his most tender instincts and the apocalyptic trauma that was the best of Van Der Graaf. And this remastering polishes all of that to its very greatest advantage before exploding across the album's finale, the epic twinning of "(In The) Black Room"/"The Tower." Hammill's liner notes remind us that, had VDGG not split up following their most recent tour, this number would have made it onto their next album, and his solo version adheres closely to the band's own prototype. The wide open spaces opened up in the remastering, however, bring new dimensions to the listening experience, and the few seconds respite between the medley's close and the first of the bonus tracks come as a welcome relief. Ah, yes. The bonus tracks. Things get off to a fine start with the previously unissued "Rain 3AM," recorded by Hammill and Hugh Banton around the same time as (but not necessarily for) Chameleon. But two further cuts, reprises of the album's "Easy to Slip Away" and "In the End," are horribly out of time and place -- solo recordings, taken from a Kansas City concert five long years later. The performances themselves are exquisite (as is the rest of the concert they were excised from). But how much more exquisite would it have been, to be given bonus tracks that reflect on the album itself?

Dave Thompson - All Music Guide

 L y r i c s


German Overalls

Mannheim: rainy Saturday with no money nor friend...
only Tequila can end the boredom.
Try to reach London for a pocket of hope;
we're children, we grope in the dark.
Hugh spends his last Mark on coffee and cheese...
I feel just like a refugee....
Rathaus-keepers and traffic police,
middle-aged maids with rotting teeth,
industrial magazines and old Sunday Times:
reading material/bleeding lines.
What are we doing here?
        
Memorial menace, eager for revenge,
has begun to bend our minds.
Shower-curtain imperative in the presence of acid;
now, feeling placid is death.
I try to hold my breath as the P.A. comes down....
here we all are in Ktown!
The Big Wheel never fails to grind around...
it drags me up/it drugs me down.
Seven senses wonder 'Can this be real,
Or am I become a performing seal?'
Why are we dying here?
        
I walk the streets alone, try to find a sign of love.
I've crushed the plaster-bone in the freaky clubs.
I have bit the fruit
but all I live for is to play
and I'm tired of the nights and the days
of airports, taxis and motorway showers,
groping for a key in the afterhours.
David takes to travelling in the van,
he knows that we all can understand:
we're at the mercy of the Kosmos tour,
making a pilgrimage to the German Lourdes...
but we're still crippled here.
        
Cathedrals spiral skywards; I think I'm getting vertigo.
I think I don't know what is real.
One more sudden spotlight; one more madness is over;
I must not show a sign of fear.
Words echo round my ears, I think I'm going to laugh...
think I'll just go and take a bath, guess I'll wash my clothes,
don't you know I'll grow to go and make my name,
maybe be a servant in the Famegame;
stake my sane and rest my life on the line....
Now lay me asunder and rend my mind;
at the fall of the curtain let this be my ghost.


Slender Threads

I saw your picture in the Evening Standard,
you were wearing your battle dress.
I really must confess
that I shed a silent smile for you--
it had really blown my mind.
I wonder, are you still so kind?
Are you still so pure?
There are other rhymes around here somewhere,
but I'm not too sure how they fit....
        
Jenny, penny for your thoughts,
I wonder how you're thinking now;
I hesitate to visualise;
 our worlds are much too different,
that's a sign of the times.
Time was when I read your cards
and wrote the numbers in the dust;
I can't remember what they were but, anyhow,
I missed the cusp.
So, so long, and so, goodbye.
Do you think I'd recognise you by your hair or by your mind now?
        
We start out together
but the paths all divide;
when there are no more crossroads
I open my eyes
and find I'm walking on alone
through the snowy cold....
I wonder if I'll make it through the night?
        
I'm an author and an actor too;
you're a model in the zoo...
I'm just thinking on which side of the bars
I'm looking through.
If I prophesied an avalanche
would you wait and call my bluff?
If I gave you just a little song
would that be enough
to save your life
or is the knife already turning in my hand?


Rock and Role

Watch for the silent moment, only waiting to be saved.
Wait for the Liemaker: he comes again
and sinks his barbs through honesty:
roll him over with all possible speed!
Don't let him touch you with the candle of his need
or let him be, hysterically ravaging your grave.
        
You are emotion picture, re-run at single frame.
You are the instant playback, no chance for change;
smile and smile, living diary!
Roll you over before it's too late;
before you're exposed to the monochrome phase
which can relate only fear and hate through the haze.
        
I am the automated arrow, homing on the heat of pain;
I am the Peacebringer...it is so strange,
I feed on grief and grieve through joy.
So roll me over and turn aside;
don't let me look into the mirror of your eyes
for fear that I
may steal the life
you gladly gave.


In the End

I promise you, I won't leave a clue:
no tell-tale remark, no print from my shoe.
Still, a steady trail to the water's edge...
I will keep my pledge to the end:
I intend to go free.
        
No more rushing around, no more travelling chess;
I guess I'd better sit down, you know I do need the rest....
Yes, it's time to resign with equanimity and placidity
from the game.
I can't explain;
I can't relate....
Have I done it all too late?
        
Now is the time for the commission to report;
till lately, I thought I'd been planted.
Trying hard to make it all come real,
permission to feel is ungranted.
But now it's happening I'd like to keep it private if I can;
last words, last looks, make a final stand.
Now my number's come up on the Pools,
I guess I'll board the Titanic for a cruise....
        
Now is the time to make my status clear,
too late, I fear, and lonely,
as friends and enemies traverse the stage;
all in a rage disown me.
And all the pit-props shatter into dust about my ears:
memory and conscience, hope and fear.
As I crawl out further on the limb
something tells me I am crawling
in to unknown prophecies and lives
the rainbow's end is hemmed around with knives....
        
As I stand on the boards and the stage lights grow dim,
shall I go out of doors, or shall I maybe go in?
Have I reached the point when I should take my cue
and follow you and your signs?
I can't remember my lines
as the prompter cat-calls
and the cards all fall
in the strike.
        
All the pages are thin, all the corners are curled.
Does the starshine fall in through my window on the world?
Or am I living out (the seeds of doubt) a chronicle of revenge?
The willow bends
as do my hands;
do you understand?
And will you still be my friend in the end?
        
When my mouth falls slack
and I can't summon up another tune,
shall I then look back and say
I did it all
too soon?


What's it Worth?

What's it worth to be safe?
What's the way to be sane?
I can throw myself at the garden
on my hands,
prune the lawn and mow the roses,
but I never understand
how to go
to be free;
in the end I only want to be me.
        
Winter days here are mine;
still, no bites...what's my line?
I could hurl myself to the bonfire
with all verve,
clear the path and weed the dead leaves,
but I really just don't have the nerve
to be part
of that scene...
is this just some kind of strange dream?
        
Think I'll walk to the steeple, where the people
are so inquisitive.
I could make it to the corner store and buy
a hoard of derivatives
now.
        
Which way now...climb or coast?
Will my eggs ever poach?
I could throw myself in the frying pan
for my name;
hit the road or smile hermetically,
but it's really never quite the same:
every time a subtle twist.
I think I'll grab my plot
and simply exist.
        
Or would that be
a subtle slash at my wrists?


Easy to Slip Away

My friends, I never really thought you'd go,
but, then, we know that's the way it happens here.
Now time is like cat's cradle in my hands:
I gather up the strands much too slowly.
        
The refugees are gone...they take their separate paths,
obliterate the past, figures in an ash shroud.
Susie, I guess you're on your way to be a star,
but I don't know where you are;
the only time I seem to see you is on the TV
It's so easy just to slip away....
        
Mike!
It's a year or two since I've seen you....
I might have dropped you a line
if I'd had time
or the will.
        
It's my fault too: I play a hermit's role
of cars and stages, wages, supersoul,
hardly ever seem to get outside these days.
So, dear friends, as we grow on we feel to grow away,
can only live in the hope that some day
it will all return.
It's so easy to slip away....


Dropping the Torch

We play games and every move
is noted down as a subsequent cause
and effectively chains our freedom and will to live;
we settle in to simple survival,
hanging on our pleasures grimly...
we must never let them go.
        
Our prison walls are slowly built,
stone by stone and day by day;
no provision for escape,
entombed alive in safety
and decay.
        
Time sets around us in killing frames,
black border round our names.
Our fingers lose their grip
and the torch slips.
        
The enemy for everyone
is everyone, inside.
I feel the hand of security
creep on me with ice-cold fingers
and crush my flower of freedom;
I've lost the course of my adventure,
all the things I'd meant to do are lost.
        
There is only one flame each
to keep alive in the wind.
But finally we snuff them out
all by ourselves.
        
We set traps and, in the end,
fall into our own snares
and have nowhere to go.
        
Time ever moves more slowly;
life gets more lonely
and less real.


(In the) Black Room

I was thinking about thinking
but it really didn't get me very far,
so I thought I'd throw a Tarot,
but I only got the Priestess and the Star.
There's a shadow cast between the future and the past;
the room and I agree to buy some time....
The cards don't tell truth nor lies,
only options and cusp lines:
the furniture in the black room.
        
I've been thinking about acid,
but, it seems, there's not a reason to believe.
I don't make a vital breakthrough
and it walks me like a dog upon a lead.
It's all unreal and, the way I feel,
I'd like to try and make it on my own....
Going to the feelies is fine:
I really have me a good pleasure cruise.
But, deep in my mind,
I'm no better or worse, just open to the walls.
Paint peels in the black of my room.
        
I'm only talking about myself, ordering the treasure shelf,
documenting these present feelings as the future sets me reeling....
What I'll be is what I am,
I'm simply trying not to sham or fake.
Use vision as sense and not as crutch!
It doesn't matter all that much;
whatever happens we'll all survive,
I'm only trying not to pawn my life.
        
When I'm (maybe) old and strait-laced,
shall I then deny all that I feel?
In words of bitter compromise,
re-smelt the wrath that's in my eyes like steel?
Be a hermit then?
Or be a miser?
Be a man who hasn't managed yet to write his rules?
The Fool?
The future holds my hand in the room....
        
Well, then, my ghosts shall steer down through the years
and lay a hand upon my soul
like ice.
        
        
So: onto the familiar top steps!
In cloud-scud moonlight glow
the Tower reels.
I, the blind man,
feeling for a path I know...
don't you know that I'm only feeling for how to feel?
        
Rats run.
Snakes coil.
Fathers
stare out at the whispering night;
rub mud on their arms.
        
Spiders.
Mud boils.
Children
whimper in the human vortex;
faces glow of worms.
        
THUNDER
Silence.
Omens....
        
I think it's coming,
all signs are very near, all signs are that
pain shall come
and change shall run
down through my heart
and shake my knees
and now it is coming,
all around is the humming
of the World.
        
Too late, with my balance gone,
dead-eyed doll,
I'm falling, falling
back to where I began....
        
        
I'm feeling like a kid again,
I'm feeling like I just walked in the door,
and with my head on fire
I wrote this song - I don't know who it's for.
Hands held fast in camera,
I'll swear I heard the Stammerer exclaim:
"I am a traveller, unraveller,
I only live through pain, and shame, and change!"
        
In my room, the secret tomb, I can see
future forms, space/time storms:
they're all me,
and I've only got to choose!
        
In my head I am dead if I fall
in the trap,
the subtle lap,
safety's pall....
but I'm living while I choose....
 

 M P 3   S a m p l e s


Currently no Samples available!