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Peter Hammill: Thin Air

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Fie! Records
Released: 2009.06.08
Time:
 46:50
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: 2012
Price in €: 1,00





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] The Mercy (P.Hammill) - 6:21
[2] Your Face on the Street (P.Hammill) - 5:21
[3] Stumbled (P.Hammill) - 4:48
[4] Wrong Way Round (P.Hammill) - 2:40
[5] Ghosts of Planes (P.Hammill) - 5:23
[6] If We Must Part Like This (P.Hammill) - 4:38
[7] Undone (P.Hammill) - 4:25
[8] Diminished (P.Hammill) - 6:11
[9] The Top of the World Club (P.Hammill) - 7:03

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Peter Hammill - Composer, Vocals, Producer, Engineer

Paul Ridout - Design, Photography
Gail Colson - Management

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


2009 CD Fie! Records - FIE 9132

Written, Recorded, Sung and Produced at Terra Incognita, Wilts, August 2008 - March 2009.

Acoustic Guitars on Track 3 recorded in the Hotel Ercilla, Bilbao, May 2008.

Images taken from the video work 'Minutely Observed Horizon' 2005.



Peter Hammill’s rejuvenation continues with this, his 30th solo release.

The rejuvenation of Peter Hammill post his near-death experience in 2003 continues with this, his 30th solo release since 1971. He has since recorded two albums and toured with a reunited Van Der Graaf Generator and, in 2006, also issued Singularity, one of his strongest works in years about his near-passing.
Although he said that Thin Air is a long way from any VdGG, he may be right, but not, perhaps, a million miles from the band's later 70s incarnation. With him the sole instrumentalist, he returns to a sound not dissimilar to 1980's A Black Box, which is appropriate as the motif of flight and aeroplanes features in two key songs here.

Thin Air finds him again ruminating on one of his favourite topics, the transience of life. ''We mark our passages as much as by the way in which we disappear all unannounced as by our grand planned entrances'', he states. The overall effect is coherent, sometimes restful; at least not as purposely jarring as some of his releases.

The guitar squall of instrumental interlude Wrong Way Round, leads into the sinister Ghost Of Planes, which is the sister piece to the album's closer, The Top Of The World Club. Both were inspired by the visit to the observation platform at the top of the World Trade Center made by Hammill and VdGG drummer Guy Evans in 1976 and then what was to happen 25 years afterwards.

Using the felling of these two concrete monoliths as a start point, the songs brings together the album's feel of loss and longing. But Hammill says, the references ''do not imply that anything here is 'about' 9/11 in any direct way. Not just the buildings come down then: assumptions, belief systems, senses of continuity also crashed, on personal and global levels. This piece, though, as the others on the record, is not concerned so much with the Big Pictures; rather with the way in which we as individuals can and must face up to what's coming - and going''. Both songs are among his major pieces of work.

Thin Air sounds like a man perpetually attempting to be at one with himself and the world around him yet beset with frequent nagging doubts and paranoia. It may not attract him any new followers but those who know will revel in this.

Daryl Easlea, 2009
BBC Review




Amazingly, Peter Hammill delivers yet another strong studio album, his fourth in the 2000s, and once again different than the previous two or three. Thin Air may be less experimental than Singularity (the previous one), but it is bleaker - and a more cohesive, consistent artistic proposition. You will find no lighter track or rock song on this one: only acoustic guitar or piano-based songs about deception, secrecy, world domination, and coming undone. As his band Van der Graaf Generator had first been reactivated, then found its creative second wind in the 21st century, Hammill is coming back to his solo career basics on Thin Air: less airy keyboards, almost no percussion, just acoustic guitars, piano, some gnarly electric guitar lines, bass, and those massed and intertwined back vocals that have become his signature. The songs are typically Hammillian, and the songwriting is prime: both direct and complex. Thin Air yields two instant classics in the guitar-based "Stumbled" (reminiscent of "Driven") and the piano-based "Undone," but there's a lot more to enjoy. "The Mercy" is particularly good, its simple verse leading to a disintegrating chorus and an instrumental break that literally comes undone, before pieces get picked up and reassembled (the structure is similar to "Modern," believe it or not). The lyrically linked "Ghosts of Plane" and "The Top of the World Club" are also highlights. More importantly, no track here deserves the "skip button" treatment. With simpler sonics than Singularity or Incoherence, very strong songwriting, and thematic unity, Thin Air has fans agreeing more than disagreeing about its merits, and that speaks volumes about the quality of this album, one of the man's top efforts. It's even a good place to dig into Hammill's sizeable discography, as you get a taste of his intensity, without the raw turn-your-heart-inside-out of his live performances.

François Couture - All Music Guide



Thin Air is British singer-songwriter Peter Hammill's 30th solo album, released on his own Fie! Records label in June 2009. It was additionally made available as digital download through Burning Shed Records. As on his previous release, Singularity, Hammill played all instruments, wrote all the songs and produced the album. The main theme of the album is disappearance, as Hammill told British music magazine Mojo in February 2009: "it became apparent fairly quickly that strong thematic links were running through the songs' lyrics: disappearance, change, loss, dislocation in various forms were stitched through all of them." Another topic reappearing in several songs is the one of the World Trade Center along with images of planes, though Hammill denied "any direct" reference to 9/11. According to Allmusic, Thin Air "may be less experimental than Singularity, but bleaker -- and a more cohesive, consistent artistic proposition." The songs contain "almost no percussion, just acoustic guitars, piano, some gnarly electric guitar lines, bass, and those massed and intertwined back vocals that have become his signature". The album's cover was again created by Paul Ridout, using stills from his video work "Minutely Observed Horizon".

Wikipedia.org



Peter Hammill’s 30th solo album contains “songs of disappearance, of loss, of dislocation”. It’s a challenging, frequently lovely album that continues the artistic rebirth Hammill has enjoyed in recent years.

As always, the subject matter is about the skull beneath the skin and the passage of time, but the settings, are, in the main, mellower. It’s a beautifully arranged album and for once, Hammill, here the sole instrumentalist, stays on the right side of easy listening. Undone (“our high days and our holidays are numbered, every one”) is a prime PH ballad, evoking 1996’s A Better Time. Stumbled follows the recurring theme of chance playing upon well-planned and ordered lives, while Ghosts Of Planes and The Top Of The World Club are the main features – bookending the second half of the album, they use 9/11 as a metaphor for violent change and its consequences.

Thin Air is powerful, resonant and challenging, yet also open and accessible. It also contains some of Hammill’s best guitar work for a while. If We Must Part Like This finds him dipping into a blues bag, a touch of slide guitar
underlining the pathos of the moment captured. Here’s to the 31st…

Daryl Easlea - RecordCollectorMag.com
 

 L y r i c s


THE MERCY

What I once thought was everlasting
all of a sudden been and gone.
It is finished, it is finished but mercy’s moving us along.
What can you carry for your brother
when you can’t stand up on your own?
It’s hard to keep up, it’s hard to keep up,
this part you have to do alone.

Each time you make a resolution               (I get no sense
who knows what lies in your intent.        of what you meant to say
There goes the story, there goes the story    by way of a defence.)
here comes the circular descent.

If I say “good night and god bless”
I might yet confess I’m hoping to see
that when daylight breaks
I will face a fait accompli.

When the time comes I hope I’ll say
this is the moment I must stay
my hand in mercy.
I don’t intend to let you go,
I never meant to leave you lonely.
This is the moment I must show
my hand in mercy.

What I perceived as everlasting             (I might be wrong...
now I just see as overlong.            you still belong among those
Beyond endurance, beyond endurance,        hungry to press on.)
beyond this point you can’t carry on.
But I believe what someone told me:
when we are pushed right to the edge,
right to the limit, when it is finished
it is the mercy.

So I say “Good night and god bless, sleep tight”.
Counting sheep and closing my eyes
I will drift away from the livelong day,
up the wooden hill slowly climb.
So I say “Good night and god bless, sleep tight”.
I must go outside and I might be some time.


YOUR FACE ON THE STREET

I’d see your face on the street
often times as I went on my day to day.
We were never to meet
but a nodding acquaintance had come our way.

I never paid it much mind,
always assumed I’d continue to see you there.
But of the mysteries behind,
all the shadows before us we’re unaware.

    Don’t swim out too far, for Christ’s sake
     don’t go in the bar, for Christ’s sake
     don’t get in the car....

My heart skipped a beat                    Don’t let down your guard,
when I chanced on a headline that featured you.            don’t swim out too far,
And here’s your face on the street,                  don’t go in the bar,
on a poster appealing for any clue....            don’t get in the car....

    You let down your guard for Christ’s sake,
    You went in the bar for Christ’s sake,
    You got in the car for Christ’s sake.   

What happened?                 You swam out too far for Christ’s sake,
Where’d it go wrong?            you went in the bar for Christ’s sake,
You’re there one moment,        you got in the car....
the next you’re gone.

I see your face on the street now
as a ghost apparition, you’ll not come home.
So much in life’s incomplete -
somehow in your disappearance I felt my own.

                         You swam out too far for comfort
                        you let down your guard forever,
What happened?                     you went in the bar, for Christ’s sake,
Where’d it go wrong?                you got in the car for Christ’s sake,
You’re there one moment             you let down your guard forever,
and there you’re gone,                you let down your guard.
gone forever just like that
and all the future’s fallen flat.


STUMBLED

Wash your hands clean,
don’t let anybody see the dirty work.
Keep those secrets
locked away from sight forever,
hidden safely where your darker side still runs berserk.

So much stored-up resentment,
all that background fallout from so long ago,
it’s still here to haunt you.
In a trunk locked in the attic
are the clothes that dressed the actions
you discarded but you can’t outgrow.
There’s a false wall in the basement
where you hide away the history you dare not put on show.

And when the hammer hits the nail upon the thumb
then the unvarnished truth is what you stumble on.

On your best behaviour,
keep on playing out the lily-white,
but you’ll always be stuck there,
going round and round in circles,
the mistakes which you repeat form up the framework
which defines your life.

You couldn’t quantify the depths you’d have to plumb
or the damage you’ve collaterally done...
still your own footprints are the tracks you stumble on.

And it’s less by design than by random occurrence
that you filled up your time, that you built up the current
to spark the life you’ve led, the person you’ve become.
With the end in sight the excuses are all gone.

The truth is, this conclusion’s what you’ve stumbled on:
behind you lies the wreckage that you’ve stumbled from.


WRONG WAY ROUND

Instrumental


GHOSTS OF PLANES

The air is thin, the air is thin,
the Top of the World Club’s what we’re in.
How thin the air, how thin the air,
the Top of the World Club isn’t there.

With easy grace they crawl
across the shadow-shifting city sky,
an aerial flotilla,
the ghosts of planes pass by.

Their gravid bellies bursting,
gravity distended out of shape;
from the consequence of action
history offers no escape.

Arrival and departure,
all points in between now coincide.
Here’s a ticket to oblivion.
Onward passage is denied.

The air is thin, the air is thin,
the Top of the World Club’s what we’re in.
How thin the air, how thin the air,
the Top of the World Club isn’t there any more.


IF WE MUST PART LIKE THIS

Already there’s no case for special pleading,
no points to score, no blow by blow.
I look around the room that we’ll be leaving.
Even while you’re here beside me I already know
            I miss you so.

How soon we make our move towards hereafter
where we will reap what has been sown.
A shadow chills the music, stills the laughter.
Promise that you’ll stay forever, say you’ll never go.
            I miss you so.

I turn my eyes, stare into the distance,
the light that dies, the door that’s closed.
No last goodbye, if we must part like this
            I miss you so.

I feel so strange and restless, dislocated,
I’m homesick even though I’m here at home.
Nostalgic for the future, I have waited...
my shaking hands, the lump that’s in my throat.
Even while I’m here beside you
            I still miss you so.

And it’s too late to make it any different;
the wave that breaks, the tide that flows
outrageous fate is tearing us apart -   
            I miss you so.
I turn my eyes, stare into the distance.
The light that dies, the door that’s closed.
No last goodbye, if we must part like this
            I miss you so, so much.
It won’t make any difference
to say how much it hurts, I know.
No last goodbye, if we must part like this,
            I miss you so,
            I miss you so,
            I miss you so.


UNDONE

I mark the high days and the holidays
red-letter on the page;
fast-forward into memory,
prepare to be upstaged.
The envelopes I push against
so rapidly become
a wrap to keep me safe and warm
but soon enough I’ll be undone.

And if, for instance, I had spent a lifetime
in the service of cleanliness and godliness
I’d still be washed up now.

My history doesn’t make much sense,
no corner has been turned.
The future's brooding and immense
and everything I’ve learned
seems tiny in the scheme of things,
the reckoning’s begun -
I hold together what I can,
the stitches bound to come undone.

And, for example, if I’d spent a lifetime
in pursuit of miraculously common sense
I’d still feel stupid now.
I’m waiting on a final clue,
a final validation
of what I did,of what I hid,
of all I called my own.

Our high days and our holidays
are numbered, every one.
So quick the hours rush away
and everything we’ve left’s undone.


DIMINISHED

Was it only my imagination
or were we once agreed, in full accord,
that we would meet in time for reconciliation,
    for the scratching of old debts
    and the settling of old scores?

Once upon a time you think you’ll live forever -
only goes to show, in truth, that you
    don’t even know you’re born.

Round and round we trod our drilled, diminished circles,
measured out our days in pleasantries -
    what treasures we forswore.

It was only my imagination,
I thought I’d got away with what I’d done before.
I’m unprepared for this investigation.

I’m so scared of what’s in store.


THE TOP OF THE WORLD CLUB

And the future spread before us like a feast,
we saw clearly to the curve of the horizon,
felt like everything we’d wanted was in reach,
all we so eagerly awaited
And the perfume on the air,
oh, I could taste it....

(Decline and fall, decline and fall
is coming to us....

And when the fall comes it will hit you pretty hard
when the fortified castle proves a house of cards
and the sweet cup of plenty’s shattered into a million shards.

Your Weltanschauung is now cut down at the core
and your self-estimation’s falling through the floor
now there’s not much still standing of the edifice by which you once swore
and which you used to adore.)

The air is thin, the air is thin,
the top of the world club’s what we’re in;
how thin the air, how thin the air,
the top of the world club isn’t there any more.
My crawling skin, my crawling skin,
what circle of hell are we fallen in,
so dread and drear, so dread and drear,
the pressure above an atmosphere, open-jawed.
All the stars are darkening,
all the stars extinguishing one by one.

Worlds we thought were ours to own
disappeared and gone,
disappeared,
disappeared.

 M P 3   S a m p l e s


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