And Close As This

And Close As This is an album by Peter Hammill, released on Virgin Records in 1986. Each track on the album is a song played and sung by Hammill solo at a keyboard, with the keyboard parts played in a single take. Two of the songs use a grand piano as the keyboard instrument; for the others, Hammill played a MIDI master keyboard, recording the MIDI notes, and using them to trigger a variety of MIDI sound modules (mainly electric piano and organ sounds).

The delicate and intimate sounds make it a work completely unusual, with a style hardly comparable with that of only seemingly similar albums by other artists (with the partial exception of Current 93's Soft Black Stars).

Track listing

All songs written by Peter Hammill, except where indicated.

1. "Too Many Of My Yesterdays" – 4:47
2. "Faith" – 4:27
3. "Empire Of Delight" (Hammill, Keith Emerson) – 4:43
4. "Silver" – 5:31
5. "Beside The One You Love" – 5:12
6. "Other Old Clichés" – 4:07
7. "Confidence" – 6:37
8. "Sleep Now" – 4:42

Personnel

Musicians:

• Peter Hammill – vocals, keyboards

Credits:^[4]

• Arun – mastering
• Anton Corbijn – photography
• Paul Ridout – computers, MIDI
• Phil Smee – packaging

References