Sonix

Hybrid Experiments 1994-1996 released on Fie! Records.

1. Emmene-moi bare theme
2. A Walk In The Dark
3. In the Polish House
4. Dark Matter
5. Hospital Silence
6. Exercise for Louis
7. Labyrinthine Dreams
8. Emmene-moi full theme

Peter Hammill - almost everything
and
Stuart Gordon - violin and viola on (1,2,5 and 9)
Manny Elias - percussion (6)

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Sonix continued Peter Hammill's 'outside-the-box' Sonix series of releases with music which was, for the most part, originally composed for film and dance.

The album's sonic experiments encompass near-string quartet pieces, raw feedback guitar explorations, and a modern-day version of player-piano work.

Music from beneath the surface and behind the light, the Sonix series provides an indispensable guide to the more experimental side of Peter Hammill's work.

"This is my own new/old stuff, although not exactly in the world of the song; the bulk of the CD is taken up by film and dance music. You may recall that I wrote and recorded the music for the film "Emmène-moi" some time ago; this year I have also spent some time working on a dance commission from Luis Bruni and Raffaella Rossellini; the first performance of this work was at the Catania festival this summer. It's fundamentally piano based, if of a rather strange nature. Their original idea had been that I play and sing live; for a variety of reasons I found this completely mad, but did come up with the conceit that the modern, MIDI, version of a player piano could spring into life centre-stage after a taped intro had been played, later to be joined by my singing, also on tape. This, then, is the final nature of the work - although for reasons of expediency as much as sonics I did not use the player-piano in this, somewhat edited recording. It's a musical muse on the subject of labyrinths. The film music present is rather more than was actually present, for one reason or another, in the movie; so churning pads and guitars are as much to the fore as Hooly's controlled violin and viola playing. A couple of pieces of pure experiment in sound and music-making round things off.

My own feeling is that this is something of a second cousin to "Loops & Reels" - do NOT, evidently, expect Songs. Paul Ridout, who is still grappling with the cover even as I write, says that if that's so then the cousin is certainly wearing a suit and tie compared to the relative's T-shirt and jeans. Possibly."

From Sofa Sound Newsletter 11/September 1996