The Aerosol Grey Machine

This is the album that was , originally, to be a Peter Hammill solo and was transformed by the label into the first VDGG release. This skirts on the side of psychedelic music and fanciful pop from the UK 1960's, but has elements of the "dark monster " this band would become....just saying the band had not yet gotten as "loud 'n' proud" and progressive as on later albums.The great news is this has "Octopus" and "Giant Squid" but they do have to be put back in order for full effect,...AND this cover fits the album and ideas there in to a tee! That dark flower girl spraying deadly gas from a can ,,,,what a beauty!So, you are buying this for the bonus cuts and that cover. Mine was much cheaper than the new "Aerosol ..." box set , and that swung the deal for me. You judge for yourself.

Recorded in 12 hours in 1968, Peter Hammill's dreamy, thickly ambient Psychedelic opus is one of the great undiscovered rock records. Undiscovered by the general public that is; record buffs and psychedelic music cultists have always had a copy on hand to impress the casual Pink Floyd fan, and more famous rockers like David Bowie, Sex Pistol Johnny 'Rotten' Lydon, Peter Gabriel and Robert Fripp have long acknowledged its influence. It's Bowie who sounds like Hammill, folks, not the other way around (as those who hear Hammill for the first time tend to assume).Not many bands have synergized into more with less. "Aerosol Grey Machine" isn't complicated in terms of playing chops but is still quite progressive and original concept-wise, and in songwriting and vocal performance. Hammill's adventurous, dynamic vocals ooze a youthful energy and confidence that give the otherwise simple songs a colorful, odd musical climate compatible with the ambiguous symbolic imagery suggested by his sometimes corny (sci-fi themed allegories of counterculture 'defiance with the power of love and happy faces', etc., ) but generally interesting lyrics. And whenever things threaten to get too thick or melancholy in fantasy land, a certain underlying humor tempers the proceedings and stirs the mood away from tempting black holes of cry-baby brooding.Hugh Banton's spacy organ textures and the thumping (but not hyperactive) rhythm section provide an uncluttered and groovily hard edged rock ambience which leaves Hammill's visions plenty of space to breath in. The sparseness of the instrumentation is thick in sound, and cushioned in a way that makes the vocals seem like they're bouncing off a slightly fuzzy, warm, foam background; and there's a fair amount of Pink Floydish 'floatation' happening in the aural texture. The sci-fi/fantasy imagery, romanticisms, sublimated anger, folk-rock, hard rock, still embryonic prog-rock, and even certain eastern influences are all somehow tweezed and fused within the all- encomapssing, optimistic psychedelic 'vibe' that made more than a few late '60s rock records bizzarely transcendent of their cheesy origins and experimental hippie mystifications. "Aerosol Grey Machine" is relaxed and fun to listen to; it creates the kind of dreamy environment that gradually dissolves philistine worries and 'everyday reality' into a fizz and pulls you into a cave you don't want to escape from for hours on end as you play the whole record over and over again like a mental patient. For my own taste, the first 3 or 4 songs are the best, although there's nothing mediocre on the whole record; every tune rocks, and has something brilliant up its sleeve. The opener "Afterwards" is a great song that would've been perfectly at home on Album Oriented Radio stations beside "White Rabbit," "Dear Mr. Fantasy," "Sunshine of Your Love," "Can't Find My Way Home", etc. ; as it is, I don't think it's ever been played on an American radio station, since no one's even heard of it (Tower Records doesn't even have a bin for Van der Graaf Generator and you have to special order their albums).The two bonus tunes included, the Bowie-esque early British single "People You Were Going To" and its B-side "Firebrand," have cheesier production but, again, the enthusiasm level is so high, they almost become great songs. "Firebrand" features some 4 minutes of wild-sounding mayhem by a second uncredited vocalist growling and screaming his head off in a sort of call-and-response with Hammill, a total lunatic who sounds an awful lot like Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, and, in fact, I doubt if it could be anyone else but Ian. Does any Van der Graaf Generator cultist out there in cyber-limbo-land have any inside information about this?What Van der Graaf records should you get? Well, if you like Hunky-Dory era David Bowie, early Pink Floyd, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash, but not the more chops oriented and theatrical progressive rock bands like Yes, King Crimson, and Genesis, you should get "Aerosol Grey Machine" and its follow-up "The Least We Can Do Is Wave To Each Other." If you also like prog-rock, you should get all four records Van Der GRAff Generator made from 1968 to 1972, or at the very least, their one-of-a kind, bizzare, underrated prog-rock masterpiece "Pawn Hearts." "Aerosol Grey Machine" is 4 stars all the way because it fully accomplishes what it set out to accomplish (one star off for the green-novice factor & one star added for the lesser level of pretentiousness being a novice brought to the project).

I remember wanting to get Aerosol Grey Machine for years, having heard about it, but never being able to find it. Once it finally became re-available, I was quite excited of course. And I suspect that this is how many established Van der Graaf Generator fans came to this first album. But whether you are a die-hard exponent of Van der Graaf Generator's earlier stuff, or the later reworked line-up, or the much larger oeuvre of music that is Peter Hammill's solo work, Aerosol Grey Machine will fit your preconceptions only partially at best.The fact is, this first album was not made with all of the musical sophistication and hindsight that we fans of Van der Graaf Generator have expected of it. Not even the visionary Hammill had the first idea of where his band was destined to go, and this is perfectly self-evident on their first album, which is itself somewhere between a solo album and a band album.Ultimately, the test for me with music is whether I listen to it, or whether it very nicely rounds out some collection that I have and beautifully gathers dust. As far as Van der Graaf Generator goes, I am most likely to play Vital or Still Life or Aerosol Grey Machine, the last mostly because of the songs Afterwards (I am continuously amused that the first song of their first album is called "Afterwards") and Aquarian; Octopus also keeps me interested because of its verve and the narrative it presents, and Firebrand (with that freakish chorus that will either convert newcomers or drive them away forever) is an especially quirky thing. These four songs compensate for the weaker spots of the album: the title track (mercifully only 40 seconds long), and especially Necromancer, which I can't quite help from smirking at. (If I thought Hammill was being deliberately overblown in this song, then it would no longer bug me.) Much of the album veers toward the corny or the horribly dated (very late-60s), like the film of Jesus Christ Superstar does--I'm not sure what would happen to the album if it was subjected to close or penetrating scrutiny. Even so....there's something about this album that ultimately rescues it from being a mere period piece, even rescues it from its own corniness most of the time. And that something almost certainly must be Hammill's vocals. After all, Hammill is the intellectual's Dylan.Ultimately, it is the song "Afterwards" that most does it for me. Someone tagged it as "the saddest it's over song ever"--I might even agree, but it is also one of the most beautiful. I'd pay the price of the disc just for this song.

Van Der Graaf alla 60’s.Excellent Psych.

Fantastic first VFGG album. Eccentric and off kilter pop sensibility on some tunes. Great to have on vinyl as VDGG originals are pricey. Now we need reissues of H to He and Pawn Hearts.

Great anouncement of what was to evolve to VDGG later as a band. Highly recommended are Running Back, Aguarian and Octopues but doesn't mean that the rest is not great. It's a really good album. The bonus give a perspective of what they were sounding like before split and then evolve into what Peter did with this album.

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Peter Hamill, one of the greatest vocalists of all-time together with one of the most original & unique bands ever.

This is the band's first studio album. It was released in 1969. In this version of the FIE there are two bonuses. Perhaps, it's the easiest album to be listened to and enjoyed the first time. The second may be competing closely. It's not an easy band liking lots of labuns right from the first audition. However, you can not just get carried away for the first time. The album features an even softer vocals rock, but already showing the strength of Peter Hamill, compared to the later albums. The best track is "Aftewards" which is a hit among the band's fans. There's no bad track to the style of the band. Very good! Note 8.0.

Not the best Van Der Graaf Generator album but its ok. I would start with The Least We Can Do album first then H To He, Though still nice too have.

The item is very good.the sound is very good.

Item as described! Great seller, highly recommended!

First-rate service as always from Reflex - many thanks.