Customer Reviews

Quiet Zone / Pleasure Dome

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It's always interesting to see what happens when stubbornly non-commercial musicians stumble into the some possibly commercial music. If any Van der Graaf album had the chance to reach a broader audience, this one was it. The music here shows a bigger emphasis on beats, on songs with a real "chorus", some hooks and some pretty accessible lyrical content when compared with the defining components of the VdGG catalog. Still, the music and the ideas hit hard. From the corrupting influence of commerce and markets (Chemical World) religion (Habit of the Broken Heart) and Hammill's incessant pursuit of the "I" (Sphinx in the Face) it's all still too smart and too aware to break through to that broader audience, since for the most part the broader audience is largely tone deaf and more interested in what musicians wear than what they write and perform. So what happens, again, is little or nothing: Great artists continue to labor in relative obscurity and mediocre entertainers continue to dominate. Oh well, no reason to let that spoil our fun.

Which is a too long way of saying that if you're buying this it's probably because you already have it or had it before. While it was always easy to assume that the studio time given to these guys to do what they do would have been far less than -- I'm guessing here -- any number of disco artistes dragging their shop worn nonsense 'round the labels in 1975, be assured that the remastering is well worth the price of readmission. This is true of all the recent VdGG reissues, including the remarkable "Fool's Mate".

The sound quality far exceeds that of the original import vinyl, and certainly outperforms the original CD versions. Which is a big, big deal when it comes to the music of Van der Graaf. Given the technology of the mid-1970s, they had to be an absolute beast to record, due precisely to their unshakeable addiction to absurdly broad, limit-cracking dynamic range. The LPs always sounded way too compressed. This CD and the other remasters go a long way to restoring the pindrop-to-earthquake range of the band, and the force revealed here begins to show these guys off in the best possible way, at long last.

The additional tracks (personally, I'd prefer to see these aggregated on to some single compilation than spread all over these remasters) are of questionable worth simply because the original albums hit such a perfect balance, the content of which is slightly disturbed by tacking on some oddities. However, the extensive notes by Mark Powell are completely worthwhile.

It's way past time to finally and really hear this music the way it was very nearly meant to be heard. Be sure to collect 'em all.

After "World Record", gone were Hugh Banton and Dave Jackson, in were Graham Smith (violin) and Nic Potter (bass).Hence the aptly named "Van Der Graaf." The result was a more stripped down approach.Dare I say it, but this may be their most accessable album.If you consider how prolific Peter Hammill was at this time (1975/1976),and how he maintained the high quality of songwriting/performance, it makes this release that much more incredible!!

This remastered reissue is a delight.It's augmented with three bonus tracks.EMI/VIRGIN is to be commended on the whole Peter Hammill/VDGG reissue series to date..Being in the U.S.A. this title hasn't been released here yet(import only),but it is worth every cent..

Highly recommended!!!