Typical (Live) by Peter Hammill

Released on 1/1/99 by Cherry Red Records
Main artists: Peter Hammill
Genre: Rock

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Drawn from a collection of 1992 solo recordings made in venues across northern Europe, this double-CD release is an intriguing mix of the spontaneous and the meticulous -- the one on the night, the other coming with the preparation of the release eight years down the line. Peter Hammill is known for being a quirky fellow; this is yet another of those quirks. As he points out in the liner notes (another surprise, as Hammill is not precisely known for carrying on at length in booklets), the title of the release is a misnomer -- there is no such thing as a typical show for Hammill, who likes to choose his weapons, so to speak, at the last minute. Even then, in the course of a concert, the songs will be twisted and turned, often approached in different ways, expanded, contracted, approached softly instead of full-tilt, or approached full-tilt where cautions and softness used to be the watchwords. The idea is to keep bringing something new to the table each time, something other than a rote version of the familiar. This can have its problems, of course, and Hammill is upfront about the stumbles and outright collapses that occur; a few are heard loud and clear at various places during this recording -- a line dropped or a keyboard passage screwed up because Hammill was well away with the passion of the moment as far as the vocals go. The mistakes are far outweighed by the opportunity to hear different and fascinating things occurring with many of the songs; Hammill's use of electric guitar in these concerts (as opposed to his usual acoustic) allowed him to explore a song such as "Modern" in this context, and expand upon the original in interesting ways (in this instance, by using guitar to control keyboards during the bridge section, among other touches). Typical brings in very deliberate elements of the actor's stage throughout, and is extremely effective as a result; sequenced as it is, the flow of the album is incredibly magnetic. One last intriguing note is the "secret encore" element that Hammill has included here -- following "The Future Now" there is quite a bit more, including songs from the first two Van Der Graaf Generator albums. A nice touch (the encore track runs over 26 minutes), although a quirky one. As noted before, though, that's Peter Hammill.

© Steven McDonald /TiVo

Typical (Live)

Peter Hammill

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