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7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hammill's latest is well worth the wait., 2 May 2004
Incoherence is a 41 minute work in 14 parts. The central theme is language; it's influences, impossibilities, misunderstandings, contradictions and frustrations.
Hammill followers will undoubtedly be enthralled by the musicianship of this album, with the usual duo of David Jackson (sax and flute), and Stuart Gordon (violin).
As on his "House of Usher" opera, the work contains no percussion. This does not mean the music lacks substance; in fact it is hard to imagine a production such as this with drums etc.
This however is a complex piece and is probably his most taxing yet.
To quote PH - '...some of it is extraordinarily difficult. At the end of one section Mr Gordon was driven to say "That's the weirdest tune I've ever had to play" '.
On first hearing I was impressed but felt somewhat overwhelmed by the sheer density and volume of so much information and found a couple of the earlier sections almost tried my patience. But as is often the case with Hammill's work, repeated listening brings its reward and the whole thing fitted into place. Eventual coherence you could say.
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5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not 'Clutch' Vol. 2, then ..., 20 May 2004
Anyone expecting Clutch Volume 2 will be a little disappointed by Incoherence. A neat nest of little pop songs, it ain't. Those who adored
the economy, melody and clarity of the production of Clutch (02) and the sense that, whilst still being distinctly Hammill, he'd moved forward into a new approach - challenging and yet with wide appeal (even The Guardian and The Sunday Times loved it ) may here stumble and fall on the rocks of a work that occupies Hammill's other favoured song-form - the long, segmented, cycle, consisting of several constituent parts. There are many other earlier examples of this in his canon, most notably Flight from A Black Box (80), A Headlong Stretch from Roaring Forties (94) and Now Lover on Skin (86). Whether you like this aspect of his writing is a matter of personal taste; if you do, you'll savour Incoherence, its longest example yet, clocking in at a vinyl album-long 41 minutes. I, personally, could never make up my mind about these lengthy 'concept' pieces which obviously have their origins in Van der Graaf Generator's epic work. I loved Flight, which had a punk-ish energy to the whole piece, but was never too keen on any of the others - they're too scrap-booky for me. Individual melodies get subsumed too quickly and, subject-wise, they always seem a bit long-winded and obtuse. Call me old-fashioned, but I yearn for the simpler, three-minute, telling-insight Hammill song. Within Incoherence there are at least three pieces that could have made wonderful, stand-alone, songs - Always and a Day, The Meanings Changed and Gone Ahead. There they lay, lyrical gems amongst the jittery, jagged linking passages. The difficult thing about the album is the theme - an exploration of the nature of language, which as a subject is just a tad dry. There's no emotion here and the piece ultimately fails to move as a result. It may engage the brain, if you're at all interested in the subject, that is, but not the heart. Production wise, it's a bit drab (as is the cover art), almost demo-ish, littered with some by now over-familiar sounds - that annoying tinkly electronic piano that he used on The Noise (93), for instance; those deliberately 'weird' effect-guitars. It's a mystery how, after the beautiful, texturally detailed None of the Above (00) Everyone You Hold (97) and The Thin Man collection (01), PH can put out this somewhat under-produced, unsurprising recording.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Incoherence-Incredible, 16 April 2004
Ok, so it isn't going to win any rewards for being the best album of all time, but very few albums are. It is however very good, not as stunning as some of Peter Hammill's other material but none the less a good listen.
It starts of as though it's going to take on a journey through the problems of communication, language and how it lacks the detail to express emotion fully, and it does this 100%. When you sit down to listen to it you have no idea how deep it will go into this concept, and it goes deep. As the disc slowly scraped it's way to silence I began to take in the concept how poor the English language (as it is the only one I can fluently speek) is at expressing what people actually want to say. 'Love' does not describe the feeling of itself and nor does any other word such as 'adour.' But I am straying from the point, both the lyrics and the music convey and express Peter's point very well, as it becomes angry as he becomes angry with communicational problems and the like. I myself am comparetively young to most fans of Peter, (I'm 15) and the whole genre of music that he is in and this is the first of his solo albums I have bought so I am not one to compare, even though I already have, but I have many of the Van Der Graaf albums from the Godbluff era and this stands up well as an album from a solo artist and advise any Hammill or Van Der Graaf Generator fan to buy it as it is full of depth emotion and ultimately great music.
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