The Future Now

by

Peter Hammill

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The Future Now, released in 1978 is one of Peter Hammill's most distinctive albums in a line of highly distinctive music. To start with, the eye catching album cover of Hammill, half-shaven in a peculiar pose and startled look strikes strong emotions. More importantly the music is stark yet oddly catchy and precise; challenging but a bit more inviting than previous efforts.

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. 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.

The Future Now was, in retrospect, an interesting follow-up to the "break-up album" Over. Where Over was straightforward in it's dissection of the feelings that come when a relationship has gone bad, The Future Now turned it's focused analysis and angst towards the world and mankind's arrogance, spiritual hunger, and ambivalence to morality.

There isn't a single track on The Future Now that I don't love. Pushing Thirty would have fit in nicely with the punk rock of Nadir's Big Chance- the song is aggressive and full of vigor and sharp wit. The Second Hand, with it's simple bass groove pulsates the lyrics about how fool's can waste their lives. Trappings has a cool folk/rock arrangement, and connects well topically with the simple introspection of Mousetrap and then the violent echoing of Energy Vampires.

The lone plaintive ballad "If I Could", possibly a remaining strain of sadness from Over, may not strike one immediately as fitting in with the rest of the album, but on repeated listening the song takes on the form of a serene oasis of desired romance in a troubled world. But the anthem-call of The Future Now brings the music back into the stark cry in the wilderness that seems to be the theme to this album. Still In The Dark mellows things out a little, to contemplate our place in the universe under the interpretation of science. Medieval is a dissonant Gregorian chant that brings to light the issue of when true spirituality is stuffed behind the hierarchy of religion. A Motor-bike In Afrika uses an interesting motorized rhythm and tribal chants that give a pretty distinctive feel to the songs theme. And the final two songs, The Cut and Castaway (Palinarus), partner up quite well. The Cut, with it's backward loops and skewed vocals make for a disorienting sound; then it speeds into the awakening of Castaways electro landscape of waves crashing against the boat as the search for purpose and life twirl upward through the abstract lyrics.

The two bonus tracks are interesting, live performances from 1978. The sound isn't very good but the performances are great.

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.

The new re-mastered 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 pH7, 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.

ORIGINAL REVIEW

The FUTURE NOW is a great album to start off with Peter hammill (theother being NADIR'S BIG CHANCE). Most of the songs have strong tinges of avant-garde electronics of that 70's era similar to the David Bowie albums Low and Heroes. With it's experimental edge it never really strays to far out from it's rock n roll roots . "If I could" is not the strongest track, and I don't think it fits with the rest of the album (sound better around the songs of OVER)- it's a restraint pop ballad but a good one. The last two songs "the cut" and "Palinarus (castaways)" are great songs that complement each other very well and have some interesting orchestrations and production technics. "Pushing 3o" reminds me a great deal of NADIR'S BIG CHANCE in its bombastic horn driven attack- There is definitely not a weak track on the album- This is one of the albums on my wish list of things that somebody would digitally remaster it's in such a desperate need (like all of Hammill and VDGG albums)- it would really make this an even more enjoyable listen considering the odd experiments of sound and texture that are in this album.

Looking at the reviews other amazon customers wrote about this album astounds me. So much so that I can grasp why wars break out and people generally disagree; how can some find this pleasureable and others completely deplorable? I don't get it. At the time I bought this I was really into finding "new" artists and giving them a chance. "Chameleon in the shadow" and "Silent Corner" were very different from what I had been listening to, and after a couple weeks I found them to be rather engaging. I've had "Future Now" for over a year and I still can't get into it, after listening to it today for probably the fifth time I don't think I'll wasted any more of my time with it.