INCOHERENCE

"Incoherence" is, to put it simply, the best PH recording in many, many years (and Hammill has certainly kept a high level of creativity and inventiveness during his entire career). I'd describe the music contained here as a perfect combination of the exquisite majesty of "House of Usher", the eerie density of most of his latest albums ("Everyone You Hold", "What Now?"), plus some of the expressive tension of his 78-80 input; yet managing to sound pretty refreshing indeed. The thing is that PH's musical genius and lyrical lucidity never seems to end: the same goes for the varied expressiveness if his singing and the clever correctness of his performances on keyboards and guitars. His guests (longtime friends and talented musicians David Jackson and Stuart Gordon) help him effectively to build this amazing tapestry of shining colors, subtle nuances and dynamic orchestrations with diverse touches on sax and violin. It is more a tapestry than a repertoire what is contained in "Incoherence", since it is not a collection of tracks but a single piece if music 'formally' divided into 14 titles. Of course, the unity of the material is not based on monotony, since there is plenty of room for variation in here (both compositionally and emotionally), but it's a fact that the overall feel of this album is that of an immaculately designed cohesiveness portrayed all along the succession of all 14 sections. This work is conceptually integrated upon the subject of language as a medium of communication, a medium that is full of paradoxes, distortions and inhibition. Nevertheless, since it is our only medium to connect with each other, we must hold on to it and try our best to keep any of the aforementioned inconveniences as far away as possible. The optimistic conclusion stated in 'Converse' is both clear and compelling: so "Incoherence" can be interpreted as a reflection that leads to reassure our faith in language, despite its inherent faults. My favorite moments are the sequences of titles 2-4 (a travel from introspectiveness to sensible angriness) and titles 7-10 ( in which the most intense parts of the album are contained). Anyway, despite the listener's particular preferences, let me restate that it is a single piece of music that I'm talking about, so it is more properly enjoyed as such. Balance - though we've still got 3 months ahead before 2004 ends, I locate "Incoherence" in my personal 2004 Top 5 without any hesitation.