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(Clicka qua per la versione Italiana)
Summary.
Main, the new project of Loop's Robert Hampson, was an obsessive probe into the power of drones. Over the course of a number of EPs, Hydra (1991), Calm (1992), Dry Stone Feed (1993) and Firmament (1993), and the album Motion Pool (1994), Hampson's style evolved from a dark, cold, dynamic sound to a softer, static, almost mystical sound. The two colossal tracks of Firmament II (1994) and the six multi-part suites of Hz (1996) coined a sophisticated art of nuances that, far from being only cacophonous and monotonous, was rich in the way that a black hole is rich of invisible gravitational energy. Hampson's technique was perhaps the closest a rock musician had come to repeating Karlheinz Stockhausen's experiments of the 1960s.
Full bio.
(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)
Main was the new project of British musician Robert Hampson, formerly the leader of the band Loop. By his side remains only the other guitarist, Scott Dawson. Main began with a series of EPs released in "twin" pairs: Hydra (Situation Two) in 1991 and Calm (Situation Two) in 1992, followed by Dry Stone Feed and Firmament in 1993. The EPs chart Hampson's progression from a dark, Teutonic style influenced by Can and Faust toward an increasingly cosmic and experimental psychedelia, moving toward an ever more minimalist and ambient sound. Flametracer advances, weaving through pneumatic turbulences reminiscent of Neu and spacey vocals akin to the Grateful Dead of Aoxomoxoa. Main's music coils into the frenetic noise dust of Time Over, stretches through the underwater chords and endless "om" of Suspension, and resonates with the wild distortions and martial drumbeats of There Is Only Light. The immense psychedelic expansion of Remain, dense with electronic trills, dissonant drones, and psychoanalytic moans, and the threatening electronic clouds of Sever are the gateways into the desolate land of the twenty-minute Thirst (only on the CD version of HydraCalm), relentlessly hammered by long, nerve-wracking drones and undermined by tiny, slimy noises.
The project is worthy of the most radical concerts in avant-garde music.
Motion Pool (Beggars Banquet, 1994) and Firmament II have by now completely eliminated rhythm, and with it any semblance of rock music. Taking Robert Fripps lessons to the extreme, the twelve "songs" of the first album (almost eighty minutes of music) invent ambient guitar music (Hampson's guitar together with Scott Dawson's), where noises and voices populate a background of surreal microtones. In fact, it is a long suite, a prolonged play of contrasts, which follows the imperceptible drones of VII with the loop of distorted riffs in Rail, moving from the challenging industrial rhythms of Neu (Core) to the staggering mantra of the Velvet Underground (Spectra Decay), from the electric saws of Rotary Eclipse to the intermittent disturbances of VIII. The limitation of all of Hampsons ideas is that they are not developedthey are repeated somewhat bovinely, aided by loops, for five or six minutes. This is a limitation that Hampson tries to remedy in his more ambitious compositions, which become long excursions without narrative, cacophonous and disorderly, rightly dedicated to desolate landscapes (Crater Scar, Heat Realm). The two symphonies of the second album (IX and X) complete the metamorphosis, giving rise to a classical music of guitar distortions. IX (25 minutes) is perhaps Mains piece most similar to the glacial surfaces of Karlheinz Stockhausen. After five minutes of introduction (a random cluster of dissonances), a sidereal drone rises, slowly changing key. After a five-minute pause, Main resumes weaving industrial noises from a multitude of micro-sonic events. The last nine minutes consist of breaths, bells, and thuds. X (26 minutes) is a darker, less dynamic piece. After eight minutes, it is enlivened by almost percussive timbres evolving slowly and continuously over a drone reminiscent of a sitar. At the thirteenth minute, the process halts, and from the black hole emerges a burst of galactic hisses.
Hz (Beggars Banquet, 1996) testified to Hampsons boundless ambition. Gathering six EPs released over six months, each itself divided into movements, Robert Hampson, assisted by Scott Dawson (guitar) and Benny Green (bass), assembles a monumental essay in his art of acoustic manipulation. The two parts of Corona follow the same pattern: a beginning of slowly evolving cosmic sounds, a crescendo of violent metallurgical scans, and a final fade into a mantra-like om. Terminus is a minor work, but even the unstable frequencies of its third movement reach nirvana, albeit through a series of more whimsical mutations. The bass takes center stage in Maser, perhaps to balance unusually piercing dissonances (the shrill hisses of the third movement are hardly ambient) and the seismic noises of the fourth movement. The experiment continues with Haloform, exploring shrill frequencies up to the dizzying vibrations of the third movement. The five parts of Kaon are subtler and more static, returning to Hampsons preferred terrain: transcendent drones. A good example of the process of disintegration of sound masses, central to his technique, is also found in the third movement of Neper. Hampson also recorded Whelm (Touch, 1995) with Jim O'Rourke, credited to Indicate. Orr (Mute, 1996), recorded with Bruce Gilbert and Paul Kendall, actually dates back to 1990 and documents the transition from Loops sound to the ambient style of his solo works. Firmament III (Beggars Banquet, 1996) continues the eponymous series without much imagination, perhaps more for contractual reasons than real artistic need. The only substantial novelty is the presence of Paul Schutze and the absence of the loyal Dawson, perhaps tired (like everyone else) of endlessly repeating a song that does not exist. Hampsons psychoacoustics finally progresses with Firmament IV (Beggars Banquet, 1997), which demonstrates greater command of technical means and some openness to new techniques. Hampsons limitation remains his lack of a particularly elegant touch in timbral exploration and his constant over-redundancy (some have done better in five minutes).
As a tribute to LaMonte Youngs minimalism and musique concrte, it is listenable, though perhaps LaMonte Young would not take such a mediocre student with him. Brian Eno, on the other hand, did quite the opposite.
(Original English text by Piero Scaruffi)
Hampson has progressively abandoned any pretense of making rock music and
consistently embarrassed other guitar-driven ambient painters with ever
more abstract music.
Tau (K-raa-k, 2002)
presents a composer who harks back to the radical electronic
suites of Morton Subotnik, Gordon Mumma and Pauline Oliveros.
On the other hand, the 20-minute EP Transiency (Tigerbeat6, 2003)
is a work of austere minimalism.
Comae (Rhiz, 2003) is a collaboration with Janek Schaefer.
Hampson has progressively abandoned any pretense of making rock music and
Exosphere (Staalplaat, 2005) is a very minor work, a mere demonstration
of what Main music is supposed to be.
He declared the experiment over with
Surcease (2006).
Hampson's solo Vectors (Touch, 2009) was devoted to free-form
musique concrete, as was
Repercussions (Editions Mego, 2012), basically a tribute of sorts to
the laboratory of Pierre Schaefer.
The other solo albums of that year,
Suspended Cadences (2012) and Signaux (2012), contain two
lengthy compositions each.
Main returned with
Ablation (Mego, 2013) featuring
Robert Hampson (analogue electronics, concrete sounds, guitar and piano
treatments) with
Stephan Mathieu
(Farfisa VIP 233, e-bowed phonoharp,
radio, percussion-treatment) and containing four untitled pieces.
The first one is much closer to chamber electroacoustic music of the 20th
century than to Main's trademark sound. It sounded a bit naive in 2013.
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