And Close As This is an album by Peter Hammill

Peter Hammill

Peter Joseph Andrew Hammill is an English singer-songwriter, and a founding member of the progressive rock band Van der Graaf Generator. Most noted for his vocal abilities, his main instruments are guitar and piano...

, released on Virgin Records in 1986. Each track on the album is a song played and sung by Hammill solo at a keyboard, with the keyboard parts played in a single take. Two of the songs use a grand piano as the keyboard instrument; for the others, Hammill played a MIDI master keyboard, recording the MIDI notes, and using them to trigger a variety of MIDI sound modules (mainly electric piano and organ sounds).

The delicate and intimate sounds make it a work completely unusual, with a style hardly comparable with that of only seemingly similar albums by other artists (with the partial exception of Current 93

Current 93

Current 93 is an eclectic British experimental music group, working since the early 1980s in folk-based musical forms. The band was founded in 1982 by David Tibet .-Background:Tibet has been the only constant in the group, though Steven Stapleton has appeared on...

's Soft Black Stars

Soft Black Stars

Soft Black Stars is an album by Current 93. All of the music on the album was written and adapted by Michael Cashmore, David Tibet and Maja Elliott with the exception of "Judas as Black Moth", "A Gothic Love Song" and "Whilst The Night Rejoices Profound And Still" the music for which was written by...

).

Track listing

All songs written by Peter Hammill, except where indicated.

1. "Too Many Of My Yesterdays" – 4:47
2. "Faith" – 4:27
3. "Empire Of Delight" (Hammill, Keith Emerson
   Keith Emerson
   Keith Noel Emerson is an English keyboard player and composer. Formerly a member of the Keith Emerson Trio, John Brown's Bodies, The T-Bones, V.I.P.s, P.P. Arnold's backing band, and The Nice , he was a founder of Emerson, Lake & Palmer , one of the early supergroups, in 1970...
   
   ) – 4:43
4. "Silver" – 5:31
5. "Beside The One You Love" – 5:12
6. "Other Old Clichés" – 4:07
7. "Confidence" – 6:37
8. "Sleep Now" – 4:42

Personnel

Musicians:

• Peter Hammill – vocals, keyboards
  Keyboard instrument
  A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
  
  

Credits:

• Arun – mastering
• Anton Corbijn – photography
• Paul Ridout – computers, MIDI
• Phil Smee – packaging