Anti establishment, anti-politic, pro revolution psycho rock
With PH's limited musical resources: bass, acoustic guitar, piano, drums, and synthesizers, he managed to accomplish in this album a clear message:The goverment is corrupt and change should occur. This album is probably one of the most unique albums PH released in the 70's,albeit, at the end of the decade and the beginning of a new one. Whether that change take place in politics, goverment, or perhaps a yearning for change in Peter Hammill's life itself. There are songs which demonstrate that change in politics: The Old School Tie( lyrics: A political man is in it for power and the smell of success ) or a more ambiguous change in the song Time For a Change: Peter Hammill's life or the world. The song Careering demonstrates possible wish for deterrance from people: MInd your own business and don't bother me. While Mirror Images discusses self loathing which we all experience in life at one time or another. The album ends in the climactic Mr. X gets tense which begins with a culmination of synthesizer white noise and then a powerful song about the system. Faculty X then re-enforces the message of that a change has got to come. While some may not 'get' this album, it reflects the flaws in our system of government and our lives and may remind us of our own mediocrites in the form of a melody. .
PH7 - formula for a classic PH album
"Here's Peter Hammill with 'Mr X Gets Tense'. . an appropriate title," - so said John Peel introducing one of the tracks appended to this reissue as a live bonus track, on his show at the time of the album's original release. Indeed. 'Porton Down', amongst the first of PH's social issue songs, fair leaves the nerve-ends quavering, as does 'Mr X' and 'Faculty X'. Yet there is pastoral sadness, too, on 'Not for Keith', 'Handicap and Equality' and 'My Favourite', one of those telling love songs at which PH excels (later, of course, remixed on 'The Love Songs'). 'Careering' is excellent too for PH's upper-class English punk-sneer, as is the spittle-driven 'The Old School Tie. ' Oh, and there's also the Judge Smith, PH-perennial performance classic - 'Time for a Change'. This is one part of PH's early 80's monochrome trilogy, the other two being 'The Future Now' and "A Black Box. ' .
pH7-protest songs for the future (now)
Peter Hammill is one of the more deftly insightful and introspective singer/songwriters of the last 40 years; the type of thoughtfulness, brilliant wordplay and expression is certainly a rarity of art in this day and age, let alone in the world of rock.
pH7, released in 1979 and cousin to Peter Hammill's masterpiece predecessor The Future Now, mixed simple folk songs with artful experimental rock. As the songwriter and leader of Van Der Graaf Generator as well as numerous solo efforts, Hammill wrote songs that asked all the searching questions about God, existence, relationships, and anything else one might question because of it's seemingly dual nature. Introspective art does not lend itself easily to mass appeal; sometimes too extreme, Hammill's music is not always pretty or agreeable but the integrity and honesty comes out in all it's substance, and purely shows an experience in the human condition.
His solo projects tended to delve even deeper into those searches mostly because he wrote, produced and played most of the instruments on those albums. The results were always interesting because although he was not an accomplished musician on all the instruments he played, but he had a way of expressing his depth through inspired need.
pH7 has a certain accessibility where previous Hammill/VDGG albums did not have as much, mainly due to some of the less challenging material like My Favorite, Not For Keith, and Time For A Change. That's not to say the strength of spirit is not there, but now he let the ideas come up more gracefully.
Still, there are plenty of fascinating and challenging songs that can get your mind working overtime to follow. Porton Down hums in your ears as the lyrics warn of the future dangers of chemical warfare. Mr. X and it's correlating Faculty X brim with catchy electronic experimental waves and piano-base mixing a melody that would have fit in nicely with VDGG last 70's work Quiet Zone/Pleasure Dome, and brilliant lyrics that speak of the decline of the search for spiritual depth as mankind becomes imprisoned by technology and useless information. Imperial Walls and Old School Tie are two other songs that are impressive sonically and lyrically.
pH7 comes close to another P. H. masterpiece except for a few misses here and there. Handicap and Equality, for instance certainly has it's heart in the right place, being a song about how many prefer to ignore the hardships of people with disabilities, but the overdramatic approach to the song comes off as a bit too heavy-handed and preachy these days (bur like chemical warfare, I'm sure it was a different issue in '79). And although I continually enjoy hearing Mirror Images, a song that has an eerie sound that is reminiscent of A Clockwork Orange soundtrack, it does not seem to reach it's full potential.
The bonus tracks of Mr. X / Faculty X are great! Culled from John Peel's BBC radio show, they are with Hammill alone on piano with a couple of vocal tracks for added depth. Gutsy performances.
I'm not sure why they didn't include The Polaroid as one of the bonus tracks since it was included on some of the US released versions of pH7 which has Hammill doing a cockney accent as Rikki Nadir!
I've always likened Peter Hammill's late 70's/ early 80's albums (`78's Future Now through '81's Sitting Targets) to both Peter Gabriel and David Bowie's experimental art rock around that same period. Gabriel and Hammill especially seemed to have paralleled careers up to that point; both fronting highly successful progressive rock bands (VDGG and Genesis) before moving into more personal/introspective and experimental solo albums. Hammill even did occasional back up vocals on a few of Gabriel's albums.
In general the production is superb and possibly his most fascinating sounding album he made. The new remastered albums (both of Hammill and VDGG) sound amazing, clearing up details and showing the fullness of the music.
Highly Recommended.
Some other albums of Peter Hammill I would recommend are Future Now, Nadir's Big Chance, Over, Fool's Mate, and The Silent Corner And Empty Stage; as for VDGG stuff all the albums are superb but some are very different than others- Pawn Hearts or Still Life are pretty good places to start.
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You can see a complete list of all Peter Hammill discography, or go back to the Peter Hammill tabs
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