X my Heart

1. A Better Time
2. Amnesiac
3. Ram Origami
4. A Forest of Pronouns
5. Earthbound
6. Narcissus (Bar & Grill)
7. Material Possession
8. Come Clean

Peter Hammill - vocal, guitar, keyboards, bass
Stuart Gordon - violin, viola
Manny Elias - drums, percussion
David Jackson - sax, flute

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"The tours of 1994 and 1995 with Manny, Stuart and David (the phQuartet) were challenging for all concerned. The nominally bass-less ensemble with two nominally lead-only players on the left and right wings took a degree of work, rehearsal and performance to bed in properly. Once the parameters within which we worked best as a unit were established it became clear that a very wide range of musics could be covered. It was with at least half a mind set upon these possibilities that I entered the recording of the songs which were eventually to form "X my heart". As a result Manny, Stuart and David (in various combinations and guises) are the only players on this album apart from myself. Their contributions are, I believe, outstanding individually but perhaps more importantly are completely sympathetic to each other when taken as a whole. There are moments of soloing but for the most part these are ensemble pieces. Some of them almost sound like live recordings; they are certainly living ones in any event."
...
"The subject matter falls fundamentally into two camps: sense of memory and sense of time and place. The two are, naturally, subjectively as objectively, interchangeable; taken together they produce what passes for identity.

Perhaps the songs about memory focus more on what is lost than on what remains or is gained; and therefore on what identity one can patch together from the gaps which increasingly occur. Sometimes these are self-inflicted, out of self-destruction or self-preservation: the end result is the same. Sometimes they are more randomly imposed from outside. In any event, one is left only with what one knows as a personality and has to make do, or go forward, with that.

The time and place songs offer the simple thesis that one MUST accept the present if there is to be any chance of comprehending past or future. Wishing and hoping is not It. So "...I'll never find a better time to be alive than now..." implies that, indeed, there will never be a better time but also that there will never be a WORSE time than this. There will never be any other time than that which currently occupies the consciousness. Only memory tells us otherwise; and this is not as reliable or non-selective as we might wish.

(How can one break free, without breaking things? Know the moment without walking away from it? Observations only, here....)

In my dream world these are what might almost pass for pop songs. They are also monologues; and conversations with several imagined or alternative selves. Some of them are jokes. With serious laughs involved."

See more info on Sofa Sound Newsletter 10/March 1996