VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR "A Grounding in Numbers"
2006 was Year Zero for Van Der Graaf Generator. In January of that year Hugh Banton, Guy Evans and Peter Hammill met for lunch in the shadow of the Royal Festival Hall, the scene of their remarkable reunion show the previous year. At the time the venue was in the process of refurbishment and renewal; in the light of David Jackson's departure from the group VdGG, too, found themselves wondering what - if any - future awaited them.
A number of conclusions were quickly reached: that to be true to the Van der Graaf spirit and to move the story on to the next chapter they had to continue as a trio and simultaneously forge new approaches in method, style and content. They emerged from an exploratory rehearsal period with new material as well as reworked versions of their earlier songs and took to the stage again early in 2007. Fired up by the strength of the audience's response they recorded the album "Trisector" in the summer.
"Trisector", released in 2008, was acknowledged as a step-change up from the first reunion CD, "Present". Live performances of the new material in Europe, Japan and North America followed. In late 2008 and early 2009 preparations began for the next set of recordings. Song fragments were gathered, ideas exchanged, theories, policies and directions discussed. In April 2010 the band met up for intensive tracking sessions in Cornwall, arranging, rehearsing and recording the album in a week. Some of the pieces were already fully-formed songs; others, even at this stage, remained more sketches than fully realised works.
Over the next months the tracks were overdubbed, edited and adapted by the band in their own studios. A constant exchange of files over the internet or on CDR kept the project in full alignment. By September the project was ready to be mixed. Hugh Padgham had agreed to take on this part of the process - the first time anyone outside the band had been entrusted such responsibility. After three weeks in Hugh's London studio, Sofasound (which shares its name with Peter's original home set-up), "A Grounding in Numbers" was completed. With a fantastic clarity and depth of sound and a helter-skelter stretch of tunes, "A Grounding..." sees VdGG pushing ever further forward into the twenty first century. Clearly, they know they're a group with a certain history - but they are also an emphatically modern one.
Cherry Red records and their imprint Esoteric Recordings are pleased to announce the signing of VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR to the label for their new studio album
"A GROUNDING IN NUMBERS". Released globally on 14th March 2011, the stunning new album is the 12th studio record by the band and is their first since 2008. The album will be released as both a CD and a limited edition numbered vinyl LP (restricted to 2000 copies) and will be backed up by a short tour of the UK and some dates in Europe. The tour dates are as follows:
UK:
March 24: Leamington Spa Assembly
March 25: Glasgow ABC
March 26: Manchester Academy 3
March 27: London Barbican
March 28: Cambridge Junction
NETHERLANDS:
March 30: Utrecht Tivoli
GERMANY
March 31st Berlin—Columbia Club
April 1st Hamburg-Fabrik
CZECH REPUBLIC:
April 2: Prague Akropolis
ITALY:
April 4: Rome Auditorium Parco della Musica
April 5: San Benedetto del Tronto, Palariviera
April 7: Milan Conservatorio
April 8: Vicenza Teatro Comunale
April 9: Cesena Teatro Carisport
Esoteric Recordings label manager Mark Powell said; "The signing of Van Der Graaf Generator's new album to Esoteric is a privilege and a thrill. "A Grounding in Numbers" is a tremendous work and carries on the band's tradition of excellence and musical innovation. To work with a group you've admired for many years is an exciting prospect indeed".
Further details regarding the album release will follow shortly.
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The Peter Hammill website: www.sofasound.com
The Van Der Graaf Generator website: www.vandergraafgenerator.co.uk
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