Search - Peter Hammill :: Sonix

Hammill's Sonic Display

11/15/1998

(4 out of 5 stars)

""None of this stuff is exactly comfortable: for the most part it is music from beneath the surface and behind the light. An alternative world of Sonix". (Peter Hammill)Comprised of instrumental experimental bits and pieces from previous projects, labeled as the "Hybrid Experiments 1994-1996", Sonix represents the existential exosphere of Peter Hammill's fascination with sound, created within a vacuum of time and space. Several of the pieces consist of experimental film music created for a film directed by Michel Spinosa titled "Emmene-moi" but were cut from the final version. In Peter's own words, "In the absence of the visuals, these give some sense of the flavor of events!" Assisted by Stuart Gordon on Violin and Viola and Manny Elias on some percussion, this is Hammill in his most naked and exposed form, utilizing the technology of the recording process to capture his inner images of darkness and confinement within the human element. Surrendering the poetic formation of words to the harmonics of tape loops and edited splicings, Hammill has come up with a soundscape created for the imagination. Some of the pieces reflect compositions of orchestrated beauty while others are experiments in depth and intuitive introspection of the darkest essence. I have always enjoyed Hammill's keyboard pronunciations and "Labyrinthine Dreams" supplies the goods. Commissioned for a dance piece by Luis Bruni and Raffaella Rossellini and first performed at the Catania Festival in July of 1996, Labyrinthine Dreams, was first composed by Hammill to be performed live with just piano and voice but developed into "a piece with music from a tape- a churning pad which gave way to recorded piano. This was then joined by a Yamaha Disklavier- the modern version of a Player Piano, running from MIDI rather than paper rolls- which bursts into life in the middle of the stage, having apparently been merely a prop up to this point in the proceedings. The taped music then dropped out and the Yamaha was left to play alone- in this way I was present in performances, even if the keys which were being depressed had never actually been touched by my fingers", states Hammill."Four to the Floor" is pure and simple experimentation with assistance from Manny Ellis from 1995 which is dark and haunting in its texture and "Hospital Silence" is anything but quite in its rolling loops and edited tape punch ins, canvassing the entire scene that would not be out of place in any contemporary Science Fiction film. Sonix, thus represents a side to Peter Hammill that is all too rare, offering those visions stripped bare of vocal inflections and poetic brilliance. An interesting look into the creative side of a brilliant artist, the likes of which will never pass through the progressive halls of creative musical endeavors in our lifetime, enjoy his monumental displays of mystery while he's still with us."