Present

Artist: Van Der Graaf Generator
Label: EMI/Virgin
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Format: Enhanced
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 2

UPC: 724387367920
EAN: 0724387367920
ASIN: B00080JDNC

Release Date: 2006-09-14

Present

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Tracks:

Every Bloody Emperor
Boleas Panic
Nutter Alert
Abandon Ship!
In Babelsberg
On the Beach

Tracks:

Vulcan Meld
Double Bass
Slo Moves
Architectural Hair
Spanner
Crux
Manuelle
'Eavy Mate
Homage to Teo
Price of Admission

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H to He, Who Am the Only One
Pawn Hearts
Incoherence
The Quiet Zone/The Pleasure Dome

Album Description

Most fans thought it would never happen. But Guy Evans, David Jackson, Hugh Banton and Peter Hammill have reunited as Van der Graaf Generator. This is not a nostalgic reunion to relive past glories, but a coming together of new experiences and fresh perspectives for the creation of new music as well as new live performances, the rebirth of a phoenix! During the studio sessions the muse was so generous that the result was 16 new Van der Graaf works spread out over a double CD. Present is being released by Virgin/EMI who have resurrected the Charisma label for the occasion. ''One CD consists of the songs/structured pieces which we consciously rehearsed - 'Every Bloody Emperor,' 'Boleas Panic,' 'Nutter Alert,' 'Abandon Ship!,' 'In Babelsberg' and 'On the Beach.' The second CD features an hour's worth of improvisations. These have always been a feature of Van der Graaf playing and are quite whacky.... I recommend taking these at about a half an hour at a time-it's really like being locked in the room with us.' - PH. EMI. 2005.

Customer Reviews:

This disc is copy protected!!.......2005-11-14

Van Der Graaf Generator's Present advertised as
[ENHANCED] [IMPORT]on Amazon from EMI is copy
protected, and I could not see any enhanced content
but then looking at the disc in explorer is somehow
disabled.

I bought this 2CD set in the this summer when it was released
and only played it on CD machines and not through my computer. Well out of curiosity because of all the press about Sony's CDs protected by rootkits I put one disc it in my computer.

Up popped a message that you need to install something to
play the CD. I instantly exited out of the Yes/NO
install box and yanked the offending disc out of my
computer. I did not even give the disc time to
respond to the Yes/no box.

Well I immediately tested burning a DATA disc and my
16X NEC burner had become a 1X wonder!!!!
Luckily I did a system rollback to the previous day
and all seems Ok but Beware!

Hey I bought ALL VDGG releases and was thinking of
rebuying all the remasters. I now am having second
thoughts. While I respect their rights, to
inconvience a customer is just totally unacceptable.
If I ever see another disc so marked....or mismarked
like at Amazon I will return it unopened!!

So be careful out there!

A definite "Classic".......2005-09-09

I played this for a friend of mine and he thought it sounded just like "World Record" which I hadn't considered. But I dont think thats a bad thing - Hugh Banton comes off as the evil mad scientist on this album and when I went back to prior VDGG albums I realized he was ALWAYS an evil mad scientist!
Without him, Peter Hammill is just a singer/songwriter (sorry Pete). "Present" is a lovely album indeed and anybody who has followed VDGG already has it, so whats the point of this review?

Not a classic.......2005-07-18

One problem I have with the general reviews found on amazon are the large number of 5 star ratings. You'd think that 40 percent of albums released are dazzling classics. Actually classics are very rare - that's what makes them classics right. Van der graaf's being a hugely talented act can probably boast of 2 classic albums, namely "Still life" and "Pawn Heart". This latest offering is fairly interesting in part but I don't think your going to want to play it that often. "Present" has just too many lame moments where the band decided "Yeah, that'll do, leave it in". Not hungry enough boys.

... as if STILL LIFE were only last year.......2005-05-20

I am amazed by this recording. Suddenly I am whisked back to the GODBLUFF / STILL LIFE era, and it's as if the the intervening 30 years have never happened.

Normally when a band breaks up, most of the members go off and lead a life of luxury or stack shelves at Wal-mart (depending on how well the band did), and they are never heard of again, musically. The reality of child-rearing tends to take the edge off many a genius.

But somehow all four members of the classic VdGG period have kept their musical skills, attitude and preferences intact. Even the most vulnerable and visible element -- Peter Hammill's voice -- is in pretty good shape here. (Contrast that with the vocal changes in pitch and strength of say, Joni Mitchell and Steely Dan's Donald Fagen, both still recording.) The members haven't been idle -- Hammill continued his solo career, Hugh Banton started his organ business and recorded an intriguing version of Bach's 'Goldberg Variations', and Jackson got involved in musical education. (I even saw him perform at a very poorly attended sideshow at an open-air evening near Esher a few years ago.)

CD#1 is classic studio Van der Graaf, but the jams on CD#2 are perhaps even more intriguing. I would imagine that the old Van der Graaf would not have released them as they are, but kept working on them at gigs and in further jams until sufficiently perfected for Hammill to write some lyrics for them. Then they would have released them on LP. But in truth, the tunes as they stand are a darn sight better than the finished items that many artists slave for months to create. And I prefer them to the murky bootleg recordings released on the 4-CD BOX set. and if you really don't like them, just ignore them -- the Amazon price is still good, even for a single CD.

It's also nice to see that Virgin were happy to re-hire VdGG. The icing on the cake would have been if they had resurrected the Charisma label for this CD!

Music Album:

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Jazz Piano Masters ~ Eubie Blake, Claude Hopkins, Dill Jones, Teddy Wilson

Dialogues ~ Jim Hall

Bande A Part ~ Masqualero

Jazz Crusade ~ Big Bill Bissonnette

Alone

Algerian Rai ~ Various Artists

Healing Therapy Music: Driving ~ Various Artists

O Pensador ~ Genival Lacerda

Mood ~ Masayuki Suzuki