Fool's Mate - PETER HAMMILL***

Imperial Zeppelin/Candle/Happy/Solitude/Vision/Re-Awakening/Sunshine/Child/Summer Song (In The Autumn)/ Viking/The Birds/I Once Wrote Some Poems

Fool’s Mate was the debut album from the vocalist and founder of the British progressive group Van Der Graaf Generator. It comprises songs that were not regarded as suitable for the group’s releases.

“This album consists of songs written by Hammill over the previous few years that were more conventional than the Van Der Graaf material, tending to follow standard verse-chorus-verse structures. As such, it’s derided by some hard-core Van Der Graaf fans as fluff, although I think that term would be unlikely to occur to the casual listener.”

“Essentially Hammill's twee record, trading piercing saxophones for woolly flutes, bleakness for a mostly innocent sense of humour and outlook, and intricate suites for mandolins.”

“This is a grab-bag of early Hammill solo material - a series of songs composed during the early Van Der Graaf Generator days which tend to be too simple and/or short for consideration for the group's own albums. It's therefore a bit less serious than subsequent solo albums produced by Hammill, in periods when his solo albums were his major creative outlet.”

“Sounds like early 70s Bowie if you were to trade in the distorted guitars for synths, but not as memorable or bombastic. It's so close to being a great album, but it isn't. Just a little too cold and detached.”

“A fun, lightweight record with some really nice songs on it. Recommended to anybody who wants a change from gloom and doom and who doesn't need every record to be an epoch-shattering masterpiece.”

“An odd concept for a solo album where his Van Der Graaf band mates back him. This album features shorter, more song oriented material than what VDGG was doing at the time.”

“Fool's Mate is a collection of great songs, performed with Hammill's characteristic sense of urgency and reflection. The observations are typically simpler and more direct than much of his later work, yet sacrifice no insight or originality. It reveals a perceptiveness and sensation that would set him apart from his contemporaries and towards an exploration into the abyss of the soul through musical expression.”