23/October 2002
Greetings
After the alarums and excursions of "The Thin Man..." (and
accompanying live song fest in Hammersmith) and "The Margin
+" releases I feel something of a sense of a return to
normality in being able to present a CD of new songs.
There's a rather specific style or theory attached to this
collection (no, not a concept album!). Of course, I go into
this within this newsletter.
There are a few other interesting snippets of news...but no
sustained touring plan at the moment.
For that, as for much else, we have to look to 2003.
Until later, as ever...thanks for listening.
PETER HAMMILL
Shut up and...
I promise I'm not going to whinge any more. The last
newsletter banged on at (modest?) length about some of the
why and how of having a musical career in these strangely
industrial times and some of you at least detected an
element of, if not quite self-pity, then certainly of
frustration bordering on infant rage.
Naturally I had no intention of coming across in anything
like that light. Perhaps I was being over-defensive, since
the release of "The Thin Man" might have been taken as
something of an odd - perhaps even retrogressive - move had
I not offered up some of the rationale behind it for
consideration.
Enough of all that though. As we know now, the ballads have
reached stratospheric levels in the charts and as a result I
am unable to enter a supermarket without hordes of admirers
clustering around my trolley, eager for me to sign copies of
celebrity magazine. Just what I always wanted.
It remains the case, of course, that I still bless my good
fortune (even if some of it is self-powered by sheer
pig-headedness) in being able to continue doing work which
both makes me a living and makes sense to me. In my time
I've seen enough of the effects of success, with all of the
constrictions it can impose, to know that I'm fortunate to
be working at whatever level I occupy; I certainly would not
trade the comparative freedom which I enjoy for the
restrictions which inevitably accompany a greater fame.
...play yer guitar!
I began working on the new recordings in the summer of 2001.
To be more precise, I began working on songs and seeing what
material was already in existence, albeit part-formed or
merely sketched out. At that stage of things it has never
been clear to me exactly what sort of album I've been
heading towards. As I've often said, the songs themselves
lead me in a given direction and it's only when I'm some way
into a project that I begin to get an inkling of where it's
going and of its essential character. I have rarely
initiated an album with a clear idea of what it should
be....
In the case of the new set of recordings a theme or theory
manifested itself at quite an early stage. Two or three
acoustic guitar songs made themselves known in a manner
which seemed to dictate that they should be treated in a
comparatively simple manner - at least in the sence that
they should not ben over-worked with overdubbing. Somewhere
between conceit and concept, then, I decided that I would
attempt to make a record on which I only played
acoustic.
This was, of course, my first instrument, if you discount
lame mouth-harp doodlings in my sad early attempts to write
blues. All of my earliest songs were written and performed
on acoustic alone. The thread of "the guitar song" has also
spun down in my recorded output throughout the years, often
as something of a moment of light relief (?) amidst moments
of more serious sonic turmoil. Additionally, I've relied
upon the instrument for years in all the variants of live
performance. Hereto, though, I've never assembled a group of
acoustic and acoustic only songs. The new CD, "Clutch" is
such a collection.
A simple matter, you may think; inevitably, not so. For a
start, I emphatically did not want to make anything
approaching a "folk" album, even if that were within my
capabilities. My intention from the outset was to collect a
group of songs with as wide a range of styles as possible
within the self- imposed instrumental restrictions. So
simply picking up the guitar and finding a pleasing and
regular chord sequence from which to construct a song was
not necessarily always the way to go. (And has it really
ever been?)
Modern recording, with the instant availability of powerful
modern instruments, is often a matter of the immediate
application of a desired sonic colour wash, from any one of
a number of sources. You want a dark pad underneath the
song? Take your pick from treated or untreated keyboards,
guitars (electric) and so on. The ambience of pieces can be
built up in a speedy, sketch-like fashion. Using only
acoustic meant, perhaps, that I had to think a bit, search a
bit deeper in arranging the architecture of each piece.
For the most part I've used what is by now my traditional
approach to The Acoustic Song. Normally there are a minimum
of two guitars, in double tracked form rather than
duo...often several more than this. As you'll well know, I'm
a functional rather than lead guitarist and have no
pretensions to be anything more than a rhythm player, highly
honourable spot though that is. The particular sound of
doubled up guitars is one that has always appealed and made
sense to me, so it was natural that this should be the
fundamental aural building block. Other aspects of the
recording which continued "standard practice" were the uses
of strangely tuned, capo-ed and high-strung guitars. In
other words I've used all that I know about acoustic in
these efforts.
Most guitars were recorded both acoustically and using their
d.i. outputs (since my main guitars are in fact
electro-acoustic). Their sound therefore approximates most
closely to what you'd hear at a live show.
Indeed, the entire venture has perhaps more relevance to
live performance than most recent ones. For most of the last
few years I've performed as a duo with the fantastic
electric violin of Stuart Gordon; David Jackson has also
evidently been a long-time live cohort of mine. In these
songs it was to these two, alone or in consort, that the
responsibility of providing alternative sonic landscapes
fell. They have performed with customary intuitive
brilliance. In one case Stuart also wrote a delightful
string arrangement for the most delicate piece of all.
Otherwise, there are only voices, for the most part lead
ones, though groups of backing vox also occasionally make
their presence felt. Once again, in the main my intention
has been to have one voice coming out of the centre of the
speakers with authority.
And the songs? As is customary, I won't go into the lyrics
in advance (nor, indeed, put them up on the website
immediately) for fear of diminishing their original and
appropriate impact in tandem with the music. There's a dark
tenor running through most of these, though; perhaps darker
than I'd imagined while working on the songs individually.
Some real world stuff, some more to do with our real and
imagined past and present selves. Just as it's not a folk
album, nor is it a light collection of love songs.
One of my subsidiary aims in this project was to increase
the available stock of guitar songs for live performance. On
each successive album there are always one or two pieces
which become live staples, but these have recently proved to
be piano songs for the most part. Time and good fortune
willing, I believe there are a number of pieces here which
I'll be exploring on stage for a number of years to
come.
On a technical level, the recordings were all made to hard
disc using a Mac G4 laptop. It's been a delight to
physically shrink the hardware required to record and it's
now possible for me to put things down with a minimum of
equipment and a maximum of mobility. Indeed, guitars on one
of the pieces here were recorded on location in Suffolk. I
intend to follow this course in the future, alone or with
others, and believe that I'm likely to come up with a music
of otherness in so doing. Fundamentally, though, however
things are recorded, with whatever instrumentation,
equipment or theories, everything comes down to the songs.
"Clutch" has nine new ones for your consideration. I think
this is good work.
The Miscellany
Another - most unusual - release will be out on Fie! hot on
the heels of "Clutch". Hugh Banton has finally made a
recording for public consumption. Needless to say, he set
himself something of a challenge; in my view the results are
spectacular from a number of different points of view. As
you may know, Hugh has spent the years since VdGG designing
high-grade digital organs for churches. He has now allied
this technical accomplishment to his outstanding musicality
and recorded Bach's Goldberg Variations on an organ of his
own design. This will not be out until December, so it's
still a bit early to write more about it here, except to say
that I thoroughly and whole-heartedly recommend it. Full
information will go up on the website closer to the time of
release.
In the last few weeks a somewhat unlikely combination of
events has led me to write lyrics for a new song by PFM ,
the Italian band of a similar vintage to VdGG. In the end
I've also sung it for them and it will be released on a new
CD of theirs at the start of November. I'll also be
performing the song live with them in Milan at the start of
the month as part of their celebration of thirty years'
playing together.
For now I'm still holding back from commencing the next
recording project, whatever that may be (see above). And I
am still waiting to see what touring the next few months
holds out, though it seems likely that there won't be much
until 2003. At that time - dare I reiterate this once again
- I do sincerely hope to play in the UK outside London. And,
indeed, in several other countries which I have missed over
the last year or so. I, like you, can only wait to see what
emerges over the next few weeks.
In general, of course, I advise a regular check at
www.sofasound.com for news updates, particularly of live
shows, which often come in at short notice.