Very few artists get to make a thirtieth studio album, but then very few artists are as militantly committed to the creative process as . was originally released in 2004, on the man’s own Fie! Imprint, and was swiftly recognised as one of the most adventurous and absorbing records he had ever made. A concept album about the ambiguities and inadequacies of language, it was an enthusiastic nosedive into the long-form experiments that Hammill had dabbled in with early classics like (from ) and (from aggressively experimental solo album ).
A 42-minute suite of songs, some fully realised but mostly presented as a collage of conjoined fragments, it remains one of the great man’s most powerful creations and the beginning of a meandering run of strong albums that continues to this day. Almost entirely performed by Hammill himself, with former colleague David Jackson and the late, great Stuart Gordon contributing saxophone and violin respectively, drum-less songwriting shards like and combine to form a single, blearily poetic epic. This expanded revamp features a new “continuous” mix of the original record, and a disc of Hammill’s mixes of the individual songs that were plundered and chopped up for ’s patchwork approach.
A much-anticipated vinyl edition features a second, LP-specific mix and a gatefold lyric insert. Much like its 29 predecessors, offers a unique glimpse into the febrile mind of a restless genius. Dom Lawson has been writing for Metal Hammer and Prog for ov.
