Peter Hammill

Festival Antigel - Geneva:
www.antigel.ch

Tickets:
www.fnac.ch

Peter Hammill was born in London in 1948. His career began as the singer and songwriter with Van der Graaf Generator, the chaotic, scary and highly influential underground group of the Seventies. The adventurous attitude which they brought to their music remains a feature of Peter's work to this day.

By the time the group folded Peter had already recorded seven solo albums, covering numerous lyrical and musical bases in the process. If one did not know otherwise the proto-punk of "Nadir's Big Chance", the full-blown emotion of "Over" and the scatter-gun arrangements of "The Silent Corner" could well have been the work of three entirely different artists.

Peter's work has always been independent and uncompromising and it is perhaps because of this that he has been cited as a major influence by so many other artists. In their respective contexts he is as happy working with pure sonics as he is with fully orchestral songs, with three-chord electric guitar "tricks" as with piano ballads.

In addition to his "normal" output of twenty-five solo recordings of songs he has also written music for ballet, film and television. His opera "The Fall of the House of Usher" was released in 1991. He has translated lyrics for others from German, French and Italian and, indeed, released an album of his own songs in German in 1993. He has toured throughout Europe and in many other countries world-wide and the excitement and danger of live performance remains an essential element in his work.

After surviving a heart attack in December 2003 Peter is now looking forward to the rest of his career with renewed vigour and optimism. His latest CD, "Incoherence" - completed only days before his heart attack - consists of a single 42-minute meditation on the dysfunctionality of language.

He continues to subscribe to the idea that it is more important to apply literacy, intelligence and passion to the making of music than to chase after commercial success.


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