VIA PRESS RELEASE | Peter Hammill first came to prominence as a founder member and voice of the legendary progressive rock group Van der Graaf Generator. Alongside his work with the band, Peter Hammill enjoyed a long career as an innovative and ground-breaking solo artist. Beginning with his first solo album Fool’s Mate in 1971, Peter recorded a series of acclaimed albums for both Charisma Records and Virgin Records, covering a wide range of moods, but all undeniably uniquely original.
The Charisma & Virgin Recordings 1971–1986, released on 26 September, is the ultimate collection of his early solo work. This 18CD+2Blu-Ray set is a super deluxe box set which comprises all 13 albums released by Charisma and Virgin, all newly remastered from the original master tapes, along with new 5.1 and stereo mixes of The Future Now and pH7 by Stephen W Tayler, rare BBC sessions and live recordings and a Blu-ray video disc of rare previously unreleased European television performances. Accompanying the music is a 76-page, 12-inch square, hardbacked book featuring extensive commentary on each album by Peter alongside many rare images. A limited run featuring an exclusive postcard will also be available.
Having founded Van der Graaf Generator in 1967, Peter Hammill remains to this day a formidable, unwavering, and prolific artist. For much of his early musical life, his work would weave between solo albums and that of the band, each with their own journeys, often his solo work having a more personal theme. After the band broke up in 1978, he continued to release solo albums at an incredibly prolific rate.
Through the period of this boxset (’71–’86) Peter (almost unintentionally) established himself as an artistic and song-writing inspiration for his peers and, indeed, for younger generations. Numerous artists of the punk era acknowledged his uncompromising approach as an influence, and major chart bands of the eighties also namechecked him. It is widely reported by people working closely with him at the time that David Bowie took huge inspiration from Peter’s work in the mid-’70s.
His principles never deviated from his original artistic intentions, unaffected by whatever were the musical trends of any given era. His songwriting can swing from traditional hook-based tracks through to highly complex, lengthy pieces, passing by full-on ballads along the way. There are very few artists like Peter Hammill and The Charisma & Virgin Recordings 1971–1986 super deluxe set is testament to a unique talent.
