Peter Hammill and Gary Lucas- Other World (2014)

Peter Hammill and Gary Lucas- Other World (2014)

What results great about this recording is the fact that it kind of materialize an old musical fantasy of mine, do you remember those experimental recordings by Fripp and Eno in the 70s that almost ignited that experimental German period for David Bowie? Well, although Fripp and Eno ended up massively collaborating with Eno and Visconti on the Berlin sessions, they were certainly dominated by Bowie vanguardist pop vision, but what if pop was not exactly in the mix.

As some of you may know Hammill appeared on this humble blog one time to ask me personally to take down some links to his VdGG records, I kindly agreed at the time but promised not to talk about his music again, I might be a liar, or I might be one of his biggest fans, perhaps I’m both, I do like Hamill’s artistic vision a lot, and undoubtedly predecessor as well as Lou Reed and Scott Walker of David Bowie vocal approach, I might say that Bowie is closer to the elegance of Hammill, although obviously is Hammill the owner of a privileged voice, capable of turning it into a gentle and at the same time dangerous instrument, some may even add to this that Hammill is the “Hendrix” of vocals, might this be truth or not, you may have the last saying.

Other World gives us the uncanny collaboration between two experimental fearless figures the already mentioned Hammill and another music maverick, Gary Lucas, a onetime collaborator of the GREAT Captain Beefheart and another great figure, Jeff Buckely, the son of the GREAT Tim Buckely and probably a big influence in the current sound of the mighty Radiohead.

HammilL and Lucas work greatly on this little strange record, full of beauty and haunting musical passages, from the opening beauty of Spinning Coins, a great nostalgic song with gentle guitars by Lucas, and a powerful performance by Peter, Lucas providing not only warm guitar lines, but also amazing landscapes in the background, a monumental achievement of sound and emotion perfectly provided by Lucas, who without a doubt competes with Peter in sound beauty, almost rediscovering the passages Fripp uncovered via his Frippertronics decades ago, and with Hammill tearing apart our souls with his amazing heart touching vocals.

On Some Kind of Fracas, things get a little bit shaky, Lucas add touches of menacing twangy almost Morriconish guitars that vibrate as Hammill starts to ascent into glorious heights, power emanating from guitars and vocals and expanding in amusing ways, Lucas taking us amazingly into eerie territories, pure magic applied to sound as tenebrous landscapes start to materialize in front of us, getting into territories so dark that Hammill kind of sets foot in territory similar to that of the GREAT Scott Walker, as Lucas starts to precipitate the music into pure hallucinogenic madness, creating out of this world sounds, combining the sound expertise of the afore mentioned Fripp and that of the great Brian Eno, all into one single amazing sound output!

Beauty rears its head again in Of Kith & Kin, with Hammill splendorous voice put in full display, at first Lucas remains shy, strumming gently his guitar in a simple manner, a tune that shines by its pure simplicity, and carried greatly by Hammill passionate delivery, at other times, like Cash, Lucas guitar tone is simply amazing, beautiful and heart wrenching, the man really knows how to extract purity from his guitar, and then in the next move set his instrument to Martian airwaves, like in Built From Scratch or Attar of Roses.

Hammill and Lucas seem to be discovering new ways of expression in this record, fining new common grounds to people like Robert Plant or Scott Walker, and again challenging Bowies supposed vanguardist attempts at pop, here Hammill and Lucas work in really experimental mode, but in tunes like This Is Showbiz, they achieve a certain weird accessibility that’s addictive.

Other World may definitely work great in another world, where talent is put before accessibility, they have created an amazing record, different, experimental and daring, few people of this stature makes record like this these days, and in that way they both succeed big time, my only big hope here is to continue listening to more form this incredible tandem.