Spur of the Moment (album)
| Spur of the Moment | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 13 February 1988[1] | |||
| Genre | Art rock, experimental music | |||
| Length | 56:19 | |||
| Label | DaTE (a division of Line Music GmbH) | |||
| Producer | Peter Hammill | |||
| Peter Hammill and Guy Evans chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Option Magazine | (not rated)[2] |
Spur of the Moment is an album of experimental music by Peter Hammill and Guy Evans, originally released as cassette tape on the Red Hot label. A remastered version was released on CD on the DaTE label in February 1988[3] (not in 1991, as Sofa Sound suggests). The album is currently out of print.[4]
Hammill plays the grand piano, guitar and keyboards driving samplers and synthesizers, and Evans plays acoustic and electronic drumkits. The music is instrumental and entirely improvised.[5] According to the booklet, instruments and fundamental note-patterns were decided upon prior to performing a piece, but no further structure was arranged in advance.[5]
A number of songs from Spur of the Moment were played live in a small number of concerts by Hammill and Evans in 1988 and again in 1996. A recording of one of these concerts from 1996 was released as The Union Chapel Concert.
A 20 second snippet of "Sweating it Out" was used as the theme music for a Boots the Opticians TV commercial.
Album cover[edit]
The album cover shows parchment with lines of red and green paint, and in some places a "2" or "two" is discernable.
Track listing[edit]
All songs written by Peter Hammill and Guy Evans, except where noted.
- "Sweating it Out"
- "Surprise"
- "Little Did He Know"
- "Without a Glitch"
- "Anatol's Proposal"
- "You Think Not?"
- "Multiman"
- "Deprogramming Archie" (Hammill, Evans, Ridout)
- "Always So Polite"
- "An Imagined Brother"
- "Bounced"
- "Roger and Out" (Hammill, Evans, Ridout)
In the booklet of the CD "Surprise" and "Little did he know" appear as two different titles, but on the CD itself track 2 is called "Surprise / Little did he know" (and consequently the total number of tracks is 11).[5]
The original cassette had songs 1–6 on side A, and songs 7–12 on side B.[3]
Personnel[edit]
- Peter Hammill – grand piano, guitar and keyboards driving samplers and synthesizers
- Guy Evans – acoustic and electronic drum kits
Both players regularly play each other's instruments. As the booklet states: "In much of this music the straight edges of the conventional instrument/instrumentalist picture become blurred; often the overall effect is of one instrument being played by four hands in some strange modern variant on the traditional piano duet."[5]
Technical[edit]
- Peter Hammill - recording engineer, mixing (Sofa Sound, Bath)
- Paul Ridout – engineer, sequenced by, artwork
References[edit]
- ^ "This recordings are official recordings of Peter Hammill, Van Der Graaf Generator and other (..)". vapp.de/ph. Retrieved: 12 August 2011.
- ^ "Option Magazine review". Retrieved 19 August 2017.
- ^ a b "Peter Hammill & Guy Evans – Spur Of The Moment (Cassette, Album) on Discogs". discogs.com. Retrieved: 12 August 2011.
- ^ "Peter Hammill Miscellaneous Recordings". sofasound.com. Retrieved: 12 August 2011.
- ^ a b c d Album notes in the booklet of Spur of the Moment (1988). DaTE.
