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Peter Hammill: Other World

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Esoteric Recordings
Released: 2014.02.03
Time:
 59.51
Category: Progressive Rock
Producer(s): Peter Hammill, Gary Lucas
Rating:
Media type: CD
Web address: www.sofasound.com
Appears with: Van der Graaf Generator, David Jackson
Purchase date: 2014
Price in €: 1,00





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Spinning Coins (G.Lucas/P.Hammill) - 2:54
[2] Some Kind of Fracas (G.Lucas/P.Hammill) - 5:14
[3] Of Kith & Kin (G.Lucas/P.Hammill) - 5:30
[4] Cash (G.Lucas/P.Hammill) - 2:57
[5] Built from Scratch (G.Lucas/P.Hammill) - 4:25
[6] Attar of Roses (G.Lucas/P.Hammill) - 4:20
[7] This Is Showbiz (G.Lucas/P.Hammill) - 3:05
[8] Reboot (G.Lucas/P.Hammill) - 6:55
[9] Black Ice (G.Lucas/P.Hammill) - 4:59
[10] The Kid (G.Lucas/P.Hammill) - 4:16
[11] Glass (G.Lucas/P.Hammill) - 3:27
[12] 2 Views (G.Lucas/P.Hammill) - 3:07
[13] Means to an End (G.Lucas/P.Hammill) - 1:38
[14] Slippery Slope (G.Lucas/P.Hammill) - 7:04

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Peter Hammill - Acoustic & Electric Guitars, Vocals, Engineer, Found Sounds, Mixing, Liner Notes, Producer
Gary Lucas - Acoustic & Electric Guitars, Liner Notes, Producer

Mark Powell - Coordination
Vicky Powell - Coordination

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


Otherworld is a collaborative album by English singer Peter Hammill and American guitarist Gary Lucas. It was released in February 2014 by Esoteric Recordings. Although on the album cover the title is spelled as "Other World", on Peter Hammill's official website Sofa Sound the title is spelled as one word, "Otherworld".



Other World, the collaborative album by Peter Hammill and Gary Lucas, might seem an unlikely pairing on the surface, but its roots lie in an acquaintance and mutual admiration decades old. Hammill invited the New York guitarist to his studio in Bath to see what might transpire. Hammill sings; both men play guitars and add electronic treatments to the proceedings. "Spinning Coins" is a near pastoral folk ballad, with strummed acoustic guitars and Lucas' colorful, single-string digital delay effects that spiral yet restrain themselves under the vocal. On the brooding "Some Kind of Fracas," reverbed electric and acoustic guitars underscore the intensity and tension in Hammill's delivery. "Built from Scratch" and "Attar of Roses" are sequential instrumentals. On the former, feedback, harmonics, and a repetitive chord pattern frame a mercurial, even fractured sense of melody. The latter is even more abstract but contains a pronounced flamenco tinge as rounded, watery effects commingle with the duo's meandering guitars as they improvise. "This Is Showbiz" is a rumbling blues with Hammill's wry, bitter lyric in tandem with Lucas showcasing his abundant knowledge of and extrapolation from fingerpicked Delta forms - before a bridge adds a touch of jazz syncopation. Nice! "Black Ice" is a rocker with completely improvised middle and closing sections, featuring squalling guitars and effects, while "The Kid" is rooted in the blues tradition, and Lucas' playing delivers abundantly. Hammill, however, offers sleight of hand and imbues his singing with elements from folk and prog simultaneously. "2 Views" is a spacious, almost cinematic love song with "found" layered chorus vocals adding drama to its elegance - it contains Hammill's finest vocal on the set. Other World's closing pieces are also instrumentals. The snarling, if brief, "Means to End" is a rockist tease and countered by the graceful, gossamer ambience in "Slippery Slope." Other World is a fine album, and one where this pair's creative reach feels nearly boundless.

Thom Jurek - All Music Guide



Esoteric Antenna are pleased to announce the release of the eagerly awaited new studio collaborative album by PETER HAMMILL & GARY LUCAS. Peter Hammill’s work, both as a solo artist and as part of Van Der Graaf Generator, is legendary, whilst Gary Lucas has worked closely with many great artists and vocalists, including Don Van Vliet (Captain Beefheart) and Jeff Buckley. Described by Peter as "something quite strange, but strangely powerful”, all the music on "Other World” has been created using nothing more than guitars and Hammill’s unique vocals. Songs and other worldly instrumental tracks create a sonic atmosphere that is unique and spellbinding. A stunning work, "Other World” is certain to be one of the most unique and atmospheric albums of 2014.

www.cherryred.co.uk



Otherworld marks the meeting of two musicians, Peter Hammill and Gary Lucas, who have made careers out of bridging the avant-garde with the popular, in very different ways. Lucas is well-known for, among other things, playing seemingly impossible compositions for guitar as part of Captain Beefheart’s Magic Band, working with the late Jeff Buckley, and providing a live accompaniment to a screening of the 1920 German film The Golem is nothing if not a natural collaborator – his recordings and live performances with other musicians are legion. Hammill, on the other hand, has been relentlessly following his musical vision since the late 1960s, both solo and as a key member of Van der Graaf Generator, on a path that he has traveled mostly alone, with only a small, and progressively thinning, coterie of musicians to accompany his vocals and keyboard or guitar playing. In recent years, his solo albums have been truly one-man shows. Given Hammill’s apparent reticence in the area of collaboration, Otherworld comes as quite a surprise.

And the album is surprisingly powerful. There is an alchemy here between these two mavericks that mixes the very different styles of guitar playing (Hammill’s competent but deliberately abrasive electric guitar riffs, and Lucas’s virtuosic playing that ranges from ambient to bluesy to effects-laden as called for) into something like musical gold.

Many bases are touched here: the opening gentle ballad “Spinning Coins,” the riff-driven “Cash,” and the eerie “Some Kind of Fracas” are just a few examples. “Spinning Coins” sets the album up to be a typical contemporary Hammill album; odd but not too bizarre chord sequences and lyrics that start with “her” leaving “him” and ending with a musing on how all life events may be based on randomness. It could be on any Hammill album — Lucas’s presence isn’t very noticeable yet. But then things get weird. The second song, “Some Kind of Fracas,” features the vaguest of lyrics combined with plodding and stuttering guitar over which one hears layers of sculpted noise. It is eerie and disquieting – which of course translates to pure fun – and things just get better from there. It’s still Hammill’s voice, lyrics, and guitar, but in another — an other — world.

Hammill has hinted at times at the possibility of this type of recording. As far back as 1979, he started experimenting with the open-ended possibilities of pure noise on his pH7 album, and continued those experiments through the following year’s A Black Box. Otherworld seems to have allowed Hammill to see these experiments through in a way that he couldn’t have accomplished thirty years ago, given, among other things, his shoestring budget and the comparative lack of recording technology. Many of the songs and instrumental soundscapes on this album sound like the final realization of these efforts.

There are a few other ballads on the album, “Of Kith and Kin,” and “Two Views,” but the meat of the recording lies in the instrumental pieces which verge on musique concrete: “Built from Scratch,” and “Slippery Slope.” The former contains some effects that are so over-the-top in a 1950s sci-fi movie fashion, that one’s first instinct may well be to chuckle, but the noises turn from kitschy to sinister in a heartbeat, and then sublimely beautiful birdsong-like noises before finally veering into psycho-terror again. The high point of the album is the song “Black Ice,” which features frenetic and abrasive guitar playing and some of Hammill’s best lyrics, and then cuts into slabs of sheer noise before abruptly picking up the song form again as if nothing had happened.

Gary Lucas’s presence is all over this album while Hammill’s cuts straight through the middle. Otherworld fits well into the Hammill canon, but Lucas is indispensable and provides some very challenging playing — less counterpoint than  catalyst — that makes this album such an unqualified success. His playing particularly shines in the mostly gentle instrumental “Attar of Roses,” which is reminiscent of the album he released in 2001, Edge of Heaven,  on which he reworked Chinese pop songs from the 1930s – 1950s. One gets the feeling that this was a particularly fun project for Lucas — a self-professed long time Hammill and Van der Graaf Generator fan, but it’s just another stop on his musical road. But he gave Hammill the foil he seemed to need to up the stakes a little bit – the vocals are a little bit less restrained than they have been of late. More importantly, the freedom that Lucas provided from sticking to either the strictly song-based structure or the entirely instrumental attempts at experimentation that have been less than successful (see Unsung and Sonix), gave Hammill the inspiration he needed to create some of his most vital music to date.

dpcoffey in AMN Reviews
www.avantmusicnews.com



Esoteric Antenna are pleased to announce the release of the eagerly awaited new studio collaborative album by PETER HAMMILL & GARY LUCAS. Peter Hammills work, both as a solo artist and as part of Van Der Graaf Generator, is legendary, whilst Gary Lucas has worked closely with many great artists and vocalists, including Don Van Vliet (Captain Beefheart) and Jeff Buckley. Described by Peter as something quite strange, but strangely powerful, all the music on Other World has been created using nothing more than guitars and Hammills unique vocals. Songs and other worldly instrumental tracks create a sonic atmosphere that is unique and spellbinding. A stunning work, Other World is certain to be one of the most unique and atmospheric albums of 2014.

Amazon.com



Ein Engländer und ein Amerikaner, beide mit beträchtlichem musikalischen Hintergrund, machen zum ersten Mal gemeinsame Sache. Peter Hammill (Van Der Graaf Generator) und Gary Lucas (Jeff Buckley, Captain Beefheart) trafen sich bereits 1973 nach einem Solokonzert des Briten und 2005, als Gary Lucas bei einem Van Der Graaf Generator-Gig in der Royal Festival Hall war. Der Amerikaner hatte immer schon relativ starke anglophile musikalische Tendenzen. Ihn interessierten bereits als Teenager Syd Barrett von Pink Floyd, Kevin Coyne, Family, The Nice, The Move oder die Incredible String Band. 2012 war dann das Jahr, in dem die Kollaboration Realität wurde und wenn Peter Hammill in seinem Text zur CD schreibt: »We've ended up with somthing quite strange but strangely powerful. The music ranges from some kind of roots territory to the wildest of sound collages [...]«, dann darf man seiner Einschätzung, den passenden Albumtitel "Other World" eingeschlossen, voll und ganz beipflichten.

Was die beiden Protagonisten hier kreieren, ist einerseits relativ eingängige Musik, andererseits allerdings nur etwas für Spezialisten mit reichlich Erfahrungshorizont in Bezug auf extrem-experimentelle Klangkollagen. Leider kann man die Platte physisch nicht in die beiden erwähnten Teile trennen.

"Other World" ist wie ein Messer mit einer zweischneidigen Klinge.
"Other World" beinhaltet auf der einen Seite so etwas wie Singer/Songwriter-Material mit erkennbaren Wurzeln zum Beispiel im Blues und auf der anderen Seite die freien Formen der Klangmalereien wie beispielsweise in "Reboot".

Da muss der Hörer schon aufgeschlossen sein wie ein Scheunentor, sonst wird man wohl nie Freundschaft mit der kompletten Scheibe schließen können. Im Kern gestalten die beiden Musiker ihre kreativen Abenteuer mit ihren Gitarren, ganz gleich ob es die Akustische oder Elektrische ist. Dazu kommen noch weitere elektronische Instrumente zur Verschärfung der Intensität.

Hört man sich "Black Ice" an, stellt man fest, dass die beiden bereits erwähnten musikalischen Stränge kollidieren. Was als, sagen wir mal, abgefahren-psychedelischer Blues beginnt, hat an verschiedenen Stellen derart extrovertierte Gitarreneskapaden, die das Arrangement vollkommen sprengen. Dann beginnt die Zwölftakter-Prozession wieder und abermals wird die Komposition zu so etwas wie einem Borderline-Stück. Aus meiner Sicht allerdings grandios.

Dagegen steht fest, dass bei dieser Musik eines nicht gewöhnungsbedürftig ist und das ist Peter Hammills Gesang.

Gegensätze ziehen sich bekanntlich an. So ist es zum Beispiel mit "Reboot" und "The Kid". Letztgenannter Track ist feinster, akustischer Gitarrenzauber mit exzellentem Fingerpicking und einem Peter Hammill, der mit seiner Stimme Choräle aufleben lässt. Dieses Stück hat, ohne künstlich erzeugte Klänge, kathedralen Charakter. Wunderbar!
Gary Lucas und Peter Hammill assoziieren im großzügig bemessenen freien Raum und können auch psychedelische Traumschlösser vor dem geistigen Auge erbauen. Beim instrumentalen "Glass" ist das Øresund Space Collective dann nicht so weit entfernt von den Kreationen der beiden Künstler.

Über das mit messerscharfer Gitarre gespielte, heftig rotierende "Means To An End" trägt das etwas über siebenminütige Opus "Slippery Slope" "Other World" über die Schwelle hin zur Genialität. Dieses Album macht Musik zur außergewöhnlichen Kunst, die man heutzutage (leider) nicht mehr all zu oft geboten bekommt.

Joachim 'Joe' Brookes - 21.02.2014
RockTimes.de
 

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