Peter Hamer Productions 2015-2020

Since I spoke with Piero, Luca , and Paolo about the first three Victim Of Illusion releases Italy was, for a time, the COVID19 hotspot with the harshest of lockdown laws contrasted by neighbourhood karaoke from the windows. But this didn’t stop Signor Hamer collaborating on “The Place I Left My Heart” with Katie J on vocals, Luca Imerito on bass, and Giampiero Ulacco at Hologram Studios on the desk.

On 24 April 2020, Peter announced, through the VOI  Facepage, the forthcoming release of his side-project “The Place I Left My Heart”. Now, whenever an artist works outside their usual field or project, the outcome is usually somewhat similar to that for which they are better-known in the original collective (RAMMSTEIN side-projects Emigrate from Richard Z Kruspe, and Till Lindemann and Swedish producer Peter Tägtgren on Lindemann are good examples). May 8 saw the release of this dark, moody, chunky, bass-laden industrial grind-core in the style touted by RAMMSTEIN, Emigrate , and Lindemann but with the touches Peter adds through the influence he has created through Victim. This is a really good song which I could hear Carmilla, Unveil, or even RAMMSTEIN covering it quite comfortably.

But the surprise when researching this piece was first discovering Peter’s Bandcamp page and his other work, comprising a video-game sound track, two EPs, and another collaboration dating back to 2015. Let’s look back at these chronologically:

“Wholes” EP : December 2015 

• Dark Images – Starting as a TV-show theme under the opening credits would, it moves through what would be described as an overture of what we can expect, perhaps, from the rest of the record, including an electric-didgeridoo effect during the closing minute.
• Caldera – More thematic constructions; perhaps for a video game or dramatic mood-music for the aforementioned TV-show. Great driving music as well.
• Prophecy – The title alone hinted at the prog-themes demonstrated by Victim Of Illusion’s work and the vocalisations that merge from Gregorian-styled chants lead female-vocalist soloist and choruses carry this forward. My son found a video game on Xbox which had a soundtrack similar to this, and I could imagine playing something adventurous or quest-based with this in loop during different parts of the journey.
• Planet Smash – An uplifting tinkling intro morphs into nightmarish dischords, only to shatter the mood with a hard-rocking riff as Peter has demonstrated through his VOI work and revisited later in Left My Heart. A slight mood restoration with introduces more bass-laden keyboard accompaniment to finish a fine debut collection.

 “Two Drops in the Same Ocean” with Anthya : August 2017

Written in collaboration with Italian vocalist Anthya, this is an ethereal mix of gentle guitars and Kate Bush / Natalie Bassingsthwaite-styled drifting vocals with tags including ambient, cinematic, and epic. Described as video-game soundtrack music, this one stands alone quite nicely. The more I listen to Peter’s work the more I want to find! Thank the deities for these music streaming sites!

“Ancestral Disorder” EP : June 2018

• Star’s Teardrop – Opening with a title such as this, one expects more of the Anthya / Two Drops-styled musings. Instead we’re treated to a synth-pop/rock piece along the lines of some of Queen’s “Flash Gordon” soundtrack-work as well as releases that celebrated the Ultima Thule footage from the New Horizons space-probe. But the whole way-exceeds the sum of these parts.   
• My Unknown Battle – This is what we’ve come to expect from Mr. Hamer through his VOI work: rockier, more metallic with time-signature and stylistic changes in the prog tradition with the same tinkly music-box from Planet Smash in the middle-eight. A truly rhapsodic battle piece.
• A Tale Called Life – Life, as we know it, brings ups and downs; now, more than ever. Here, after the title which demonstrates an internal battle, we have what Peter wants us to see from the outside. Calm, soothing, but with a steady beat under more choral / vocal effects ion another operatic / rhapsodic movement.
• This Unbelievable Horizon – Opening like a wavering lo-fi Eastern-European film soundtrack, we are soon treated to a Mike Oldfield / Ultima Thule opus to close out this remarkable work. To choose a stand-out from these pieces would be difficult, as they all have their individual qualities, but I do quite like this one and Life. So, what can we expect from his next venture? 

“Water Ride Express” video-game sound track album : March 2019

• Monster Ride – Straight-ahead electric/acoustic-guitar incorporating slide/blues rock that could stand alone very well. Opening credits soundtrack?
• Downhill – A reprise of Monster but with a country/western up-beat.
• Surfing Wave – Acoustic guitar with The Edge/U2 echo effects .. Streets Have No Name but quicker. It’s hard to pick the basis of the game from these three tracks. This one could even be the closing-credits track.
• Two Drops in the Same Ocean (instrumental) – Drama-building ethereal mood-music as per that had me waiting for the beat to drop .. cue 84th second. Love that drop-tuned bass from c.2:45! Rapidly becoming my favourite from Peter’s work to date.
• Boundary Exception - Hope (Instrumental) – Prog Rock in ⁶₈ to start, morphing into other signatures I couldn’t identify, then back again. Action-sequence backing track.
• Victim of Illusion - Dewdrop (instrumental) – Space / jungle-mood dischords with the space-mood being overridden by jungle drums into an epic rock beat and Simple Minds-keys and more of that drop bass.

Marketed as a video-game soundtrack with tags including cinematic, epic, and soundscape, any musician would be pleased to include this in their discography without the distraction of a video game. It could even work on its own in conjunction with (the space tunes on previous release).

Now, in my experience, when an artist has a BandCamp page, there is usually also a Soundcloud page! And Peter Hamer is no exception. Not only is The Place I Left My Heart here, but you’ll find both vocal and instrumental versions of Two Drops, and selections from “Wholes”, “Ancestral”, and “Water Ride”, including the collaboration with Judy Kang on My Unknown Battle. Peter Hamer is an amazing musician and these collections are simply sensational! But which is the side project, this work, or VOI?

Having reviewed all of his audio-only work it was time to see if there was a YouTube channel. And whilst I was disappointed that most of them are shorts and trailers, there are still full-length videos for some of those songs including, like a good artist, work there not available elsewhere, including Escape from New York, Profondo Rosso, The Exorcist, Anesthetise, and a showreel of his work to that point. We also learn why some of the releases on the other platform/s are “no covers”, with the cover-versions appearing here instead.

“Both albums ‘Wholes’ and ‘Ancestral disorder’ are made of 6 tracks with 2 cover songs on each”, Peter explains. ”Since I cannot post cover songs in Band Camp, I did a ‘no covers’ version, but if you go on Spotify, Amazon or any other streaming platform you can find the full version of the album”. And as an added extra bonus, there is also a collaboration with Jes Hudak on an Imogen Heap song Hide and Seek, as well as more output from side projects, including the female-fronted Boundary Exception from whom I would love to hear more, based solely on the teaser on his website, and Mohai Experiment. There seems to be no end to Peter’s creativity!

Those cover songs include:

• Escape (metal-styled cover version of the John Carpenter movie theme labeled as, perhaps, a recoding from the “Wholes” project): Had me envisaging the scene where Roland Deschaine and his troupe were walking through New York, crossing the long-rusted pedestrian bridges, to meet Blaine the Super Train that would take then to Topeka. I know this isn’t Carpenter but it has the same desolate, apocalyptic, doom-laden epic journey that was EFNY (I imagine- I haven’t watched it but I’m familiar with Carpenter’s work as a filmmaker).
• Profondo: Another cover from the “Wholes” project, this one has Mike Oldfield meeting Sky in a sometimes ¹⁵₈ time signature with a huge church-organ a la Toccata and Fugue / Thus Spake Zarathustra / Rick Wakeman thrown in amongst the drop-bass and multi-kick drumming. Wow!!
• Exorcist: And speaking of Mike Oldfield, here is Peter’s take on Oldfield’s contribution to the Exorcist soundtrack from the “Ancestral Disorder” project. The video is the aural spectrum under the album art showing the track-position within the album with a rhapsodic piece whose time signatures alternate between ⁷₈ and ⁸₈.

I have to thank Amanda Easton, who valued my opinion and supported my writing since we first back in the 1990s, for getting me back into this for her Christmas 2019 release and our subsequent interview (and you're not going to hear the end of this, Amanda!). The availability of music today is much more ubiquitous than it was back then when you physically had to go to a bricks-and-mortar store to part with your hard-earned for a silver disc in a plastic box. This is as good as it is bad for 21^st century musicians because, while it gets their work into more ears than ever before, it doesn’t necessarily pay them any better. But that discussion is for another day. As I trawl the Interwebz with thanks to my Twitter feed, I will keep bringing you the treasures I find with the hope that, one day, these people will bring their show to our shores and you can physically go out there and support them!

PG (Jacky) Gleeson
30 July 2020