The Van Der Graaf Generator were in many ways the most original exponents of British progressive rock in the early �70s. Both the group�s sound and the lyrics of singer-philosopher Peter Hammill expressed a hallucinatory pessimism about the fate of humanity. From their pieces, torn by existential tension and violent bursts of pain, emanates a sense of anguish, claustrophobia, and paranoia. Compared to other progressive-rock bands, VDGG always seemed darker and gloomier, almost gothic. They shunned both classical pretensions (Nice, Yes) and medieval ones (King Crimson, Genesis), carving out a unique and terrifying universe.

Formed at the University of Manchester around singer Peter Hammill (the epitome of neurosis), drummer Guy Evans (apocalyptic), and organist Hugh Banton (gothic), VDGG took a few years to fuse these three personalities. The group debuted with the singles People You Were Going To / Firebrand (Polydor, 1968) and Afterwards / Necromancer (Mercury, 1969). The album The Aerosol Grey Machine (Mercury, January 1969) already contained some long tracks (Aquarian and Octopus), but the execution was still naive. The band seemed to falter whenever it ventured beyond the ballad Afterwards. Hammill�s personality dominated the group, but there was still little musical substance behind his words.

Saxophonist David Jackson helped the band take a step forward on The Least We Can Do Is Wave To Each Other (Charisma, 1970), an album containing only six long tracks. Refugees is a far more anguished ballad. Darkness, White Hammer, and After the Flood are true philosophical poems, bridging Central Europe of the 1930s with the fears of the nuclear age.

The sinister tones of that album culminated in H To He Who Am The Only One (Charisma, 1970 � Virgin, 2005), the romantic manifesto of VDGG. The album contains only five tracks, and three of them exceed ten minutes. Hammill�s lyrics and melodies are accompanied by intricate, laborious harmonies, full of rhythmic jolts and background disturbances that heighten the drama. A jazz-rock, the bastard child of Miles Davis, takes on masculine and terrifying shades.
The grim and obsessive riff of Killer (a brass tour de force) plunges the listener into the macabre atmosphere of a poem about Evil, before being swept away by the epic phrases of the organ.
A heartrending delirium of solitude is House With No Door, a lyrical and elegiac ballad for piano.
The epic vision of The Emperor In His War Room (nine minutes) is another murderous nightmare, which Hammill�s icy vocals, shifting through different registers, manage to convey in all its chilling neurosis. The technique resembles that of Genesis, but with two key differences: the sound serves not medieval tales, but atrocious inner dramas; the arrangement avoids baroque embellishments, remaining essential and even unsettling.
Lost (eleven minutes) opens into abysses of fear and desolation: the organ weaves liturgical litanies while the saxophone distorts with anguished phrases, an electric shock unleashes a fairground pandemonium, the drums maintain a funeral cadence over the saxophone�s Indian notes, and in the final crescendo, Hammill�s desperate agony is lost.
VDGG develop a form of narrative music that does not tell a plot but deepens a soliloquy. The quintessence of this practice is Pioneers (twelve minutes), which, far from celebrating a space saga, instead describes the torment of a space pioneer lost among the galaxies (moments of apotheosis and calls for help), and the music follows him through the vortices of his anguish. Hammill�s vocal style, derived from Tim Buckley but with added Wagnerian theatricality, imparts overtones of pathos and epic grandeur.

Continuing the progression toward an ever more complex and terrifying sound, the group reached a masterpiece with Pawn Hearts (Charisma, 1971 � Virgin, 2005), dominated by three long suites. VDGG�s music is dark, capable of reflecting on the great themes of the universe and of death.
Lemmings is a psychotic dance bombarded with organistic dissonances and stubborn sax riffs, in which the mass suicide of the rodents is taken as a metaphor for modern neurosis.
Man-Erg is a heartfelt anthem to man in the technocratic age, a kind of Pioneers for the human being who remains, no less alone and anguished, on Earth: Hammill�s singing is torn apart by anguished organic litanies, like a mass in nomine, until it explodes into a sudden cascade of hammering sax syncopations, yet still capable of recovering an epic dimension.
A Plague Of The Lighthouse Keeper is their most tragic kammerspiel: the opening verses of the melody (repeated by a children�s choir) soon disintegrate into a rarefied instrumental magma, in which the saxophone imitates the sirens of the steamers; glacial organ notes return to the initial theme, a tense and vibrant soliloquy recited in an agitated manner as in an expressionist lied; on celestial organ chords, the singing opens to a more human melodicism, but, torn apart by another epileptic surge that fragments and distorts it, it fades in one final, atrocious spasm against the pressing force of a majestic choral hymn. It is the apotheosis of Hammill�s solitude and of the human condition itself.
Farther and farther from psychedelic suites and folk ballads, VDGG�s romanticism now seems influenced more by the development of themes in classical symphonism.
The cold, dark, and desolate atmospheres of their tracks have no equal in the annals of progressive rock of that era.

Peter Hammill launched a solo career in which he would simply continue to explore, almost obsessively, the same terrible themes. His albums are relentless in granting nothing to ease of listening. Ignoring any commercial logic, the former Van Der Graaf Generator singer released highly personal and hermetic works at a regular pace, often in opposition to prevailing trends: Fool's Mate (Charisma, 1971) is still a bizarre album, with the unrestrained Imperial Zeppelin, Viking, and Sunshine alongside the Freudian nightmares of Solitude and Child (and the original versions of Vision and Birds), but Chameleon in the Shadow of the Night (Charisma, 1973 � Virgin, 1989) is the first of his austere acts of contrition, arranged almost entirely for piano and acoustic guitar, rich in moments of great pathos (especially In the End, but also the expressionist nightmare German Overalls, Easy to Slip Away, Black Room, The Tower). Hammill had found a compelling balance between the eccentric folk-pop of Syd Barrett and the austere psychodrama of Peter Gabriel.

The Silent Corner and the Empty Stage (Charisma, 1974) contains The Lie and Rubicon, as well as the convoluted Modern and Red Shift and the long A Louse is not a Home. In Camera (Charisma, 1974) is one of his best albums, thanks to Ferret and Featherbird, Faint-Heart and the Sermon, the experimental suite Gog/Magog, and a general sense of madness.
Hammill is a claustrophobic ascetic whose art moves within a narrow space of still and silent darkness. His lyrics plunge into the inner labyrinths of a tormented subconscious, a victim of existence and all its contradictions. The music is fragile, thin, and slow, whatever the arrangement (often free-form, electronic, or sparse). His singing is modulated, intense, and deep, but never showy, as befits a contrite self-flagellation.

Nadir's Big Chance (Charisma, 1975), che si avvaleva della collaborazione dei vecchi compagni, inauguro` invece la saga di Rikki Nadir all'insegna di un sound quasi hard-rock.

Van Der Graaf Generator reformed after four years and released three mediocre albums before disbanding again: Godbluff (Charisma, 1975), Still Life (Charisma, 1976 - Virgin, 2006), possibly the best of the three (Pilgrims, the 12-minute Childlike Faith In Childhood's End), World Record (Charisma, 1976). Hammill led a smaller unit (with bass and violin replacing sax and organ), that recorded The Quiet Zone The Pleasure Dome (Charisma, 1977). VDG reformed almost 30 years later to record Present (Charisma, 2005).

After the second VDGG period, Hammill resumed his solo career. Unfortunately, quality does not always correlate with quantity, and many tracks from his albums could have easily stayed in the drawer.

Over (Charisma, 1977) is one of his most �private� albums and features some of his most tormented compositions, sometimes marked by orchestral accompaniment (This Side of the Looking Glass, Autumn, Time Heals, a nine-minute piece).

The Future Now (Charisma, 1978), an album characterized by sociopolitical interests and electronic arrangements, nonetheless includes The Future Now, Energy Vampires, Medieval, and Palinurus.

PH7 (Charisma, 1979) features My Favourite, Polaroid, Handicap And Equality, and Faculty X.

Cosmic pain dominates over the private tragedy of this marginalized singer of anxiety. The twenty-minute suite Flight, on A Black Box (Mercury, 1980), is perhaps the kaleidoscope of intimate emotions in which his introversion is best expressed.
Sitting Targets (Mercury, 1981) does not have particular peaks, but represents a good summary of the period.
Loops and Reels (Mercury, 1983) collects experiments of various kinds.
Skin (Foundry, 1986) is perhaps the worst of his entire career.
And Close As This (Virgin, 1986) is instead one of the best, even if (or perhaps precisely because) it is different from the average. The songs are truly �songs,� with accompaniment almost exclusively by piano, and the anguish recedes into the background: Silver, one of his masterpieces; Too Many of My Yesterdays, one of his happiest choruses; Sleep Now, Silver, Delivery, Other Old Cliches, Empire of Delight.

Enter K (Naive, 1982) and Patience (Naive, 1983) are credited to the K Group and present a more rock-oriented, even disco-influenced sound. Film Noir and Patience on the latter are particularly catchy (unusual for Hammill�s typically dark standard). In A Foreign Town (1988) is still a somewhat confusing collection, although the references to pop and disco music are better blended and less obtrusive (Invisible Ink, Time To Burn, The Play's The Thing).

In his mature years, Hammill approached music increasingly with the spirit of a classical composer, and his albums increasingly took on the appearance of chamber works, in which Hammill often played all the instruments himself. This phase culminates in the cultivated songbook of Out Of Water (Enigma, 1990), featuring the enchanting Something About Ysabel's Dance and Evidently Goldfish, the dark No Moon In The Water and Green Fingers (which return for a few minutes to the VDGG atmospheres), and especially the long pieces A Way Out (seven minutes) and On The Surface (eight minutes).

The double album The Fall of the House of Usher (Some Bizarre, 1991), a rock opera dedicated to the tales of Edgar Allan Poe and arranged electronically, had been in the works for almost twenty years and was completely remixed ten years later (Fie, 2000). The album opens the 1990s with boundless ambition, but perhaps also with a drying up of inspiration (proportional to the number of albums released).

Fireships (Fie, 1992) returns to the introspective style of And Close As This, but with an abundance of violins and keyboards.
The Noise (Fie, 1993), one of his most accessible albums, instead returns to the guitar-driven sound and heavy pulse of Nadir (Great European Department Store, Entertainer), while the complex Primo On The Parapet, the dark Planet Coventry, and the spectral Noise (perhaps the three peaks of the work, though the least accessible) maintain a high quotient of unease.

The twenty-minute A Headlong Stretch makes Roaring Forties (Fie, 1994) the best album of this phase (despite the ballad Your Tall Ship).

Typical and Roomtemperaturelive are live albums.

Hammill would continue to release albums annually, but never again reach the heights of his best years: X My Heart (Fie, 1996), Sonix (Fie, 1997), Everyone You Hold (Fie, 1997), This (Fie, 1998), The Appointed Hour (Fie, 1999), a collaboration with Roger Eno, None of Above (Fie, 2000), Incoherence (2004). These are banal, patchy, and, all in all, embarrassing works that have greatly diminished the stature of the artist.

The Appointed Hour (Tone Casualties, 2003) is a collaboration between Peter Hammill and Roger Eno.

Veracious (2006) documents live performances from 1999 to 2004.

Hammill's Singularity (2007), the first album since his 2004 heart attack and consequent flirt with death, was another indulgent set that delivered only one truly arresting song, closer White Dot. In less than 40 years Hammill had already recorded more than 50 albums. And it showed.

Trisector (2008) was the first studio album by VDG since the reunion and Consequences (Fie!, 2012) was yet another Peter Hammill solo.

Other World (2014) was a collaboration between � Peter Hammil land Gary Lucas.

Hammill released the solo albums All that might have been (2014) and From the Trees (2017). We Persuade Ourselves We Are Immortal (2020) documents a collaboration with � Amorphous Androgynou. In Amazonia (2019) and In Disequilibrium 2021) were collaborations with � Isildurs Bane.

VDG (the trio of (Hammill, Banton and Evans) released A Grounding in Numbers (2011), Alt (2012) and Do Not Disturb (2016).