All Stories (RSS)
Lol Hammond: A Profile
1. If the cap fits…It might be hard for some people to accept Lol Hammond as a chill out artist. For starters, there’s his musical lineage as a beatmeister par excellence: Spiral Tribe and Drum Club, the breakbeat terrorism of his Slab and Girl Eats Boy collaborations - sample album title: ‘Thrilled by Velocity and Distortion’ - his Killing Joke and Fall remixes, not to mention Funkt, his maverick monthly mash-up that is most definitely not for couch potatoes.
Then there’s his work within the more commercial world of mass media: not content with soundtracking the last James Bond trailer, a range of TV and radio ads, and the odd BBC documentary, Lol has also taken an acting part in ‘SW9’, the forthcoming movie from the makers of ‘Human Traffic’ (which, he says, gets Brixton down to a T). Not surprisingly he has also contributed to the film’s soundtrack.
Finally, there’s the man himself: the ever-present baseball cap, the slightly wicked gleam in his eye when he talks about his adventures as a DJ - getting fanmail from Madonna, larking about with Orbital, the mad years after ’88 - and his evident relish for the Brixton scene which he has done so much to build up. None of it exactly fits the sometime misperception of the Big Chill as a scene filled with latterday hippies and obscurantist ambient types.
The reality, of course, is otherwise. The UK chill out scene is peopled largely by open-minded, modern souls who are passionate about their pleasures - and not least music. And that’s exactly what Lol Hammond is. He’s a man who knows how to enjoy himself, and one of the things he enjoys most is a bit of quality chillage when he’s not bashing the decks. What’s more, he’s an all-round, decent person - who is as friendly, modest and unassuming as your favourite neighbour - about whom no-one, but no-one, has a bad word to say.
So it really shouldn’t come as any surprise that this many-talented, big softie of a chap has gone and made ‘All This Is Bliss’, one of the most richly rewarding chill-out albums you’re likely to hear this year. Three years in the making, it’s a powerful, emotive record that above all else delivers a hugely pleasurable experience to the listener. When Lol’s Mum heard it, she declared she wanted to come to the Big Chill if all their music was like that. Nick Warren, no stranger to the kingdom of chill himself, has already called it the LP of the summer. It’s that kind of record.
2. All this is bliss
Certainly it’s clear from the opening bars of the album that Lol makes serious music unashamed of its yearning for beauty. ‘I wanted to make a properly musical chill out LP,’ he explains. ‘A bit classic - you’ve got to aim high, haven’t you? - the kind of thing you can whack on and play all the way through.’
That’s not to say it’s a one-mood album. Far from it: it is carefully structured to take the listener on a journey from the lighter highs of its first half through the darker matter in its middle - and out again. ‘Chill out doesn’t have to be all sweet stuff; and I didn’t want it to be airy-fairy,’ says Lol. ‘But nor did I want to take people on a bad trip.’
What you get instead is an album that is as multi-faceted as the man behind it. You can as easily imagine some tracks winding down a long and rousing set by a big name DJ as others being gently dropped in the midst of a mellow afternoon on an English lawn - which no doubt is exactly what Lol will do when he plays both the Big Chill’s outdoor events this summer.
So far from being a hindrance, the kind of intimate knowledge Lol has of club audiences - often a difficult bunch to please, let’s face it - is quite an asset when it comes to delivering music that demands a bit more listening to. For one of the great strengths of ‘All This Is Bliss’ is the way Lol’s music is augmented by the presence of three strong female vocalists who really know how to grab onto the listener’s attention: Lorraine McIntosh from Deacon Blue, Sally Rodgers of A Man Called Adam, and Nina Walsh of the Sabrettes, Slab and the recent Orb LP.
Lol counts himself lucky to have got three such potent female talents onto one album. While he originally had the Cocteaus’ Liz Frazer in mind for ‘Baby Piano’ - she proved unavailable - the moment he heard Lorraine he knew he had found exactly what the track needed. You’ll understand what he means when you hear the way her voice works off Lol’s delicate piano arrangement.
‘Love Forgotten’, which Lol wrote with Sally Rodgers, is something else altogether; it’s a much more upfront tune with that deep religious feeling that only the most heartfelt music can conjure up. ‘Sally’s a real thinker, and she just loves music,’ says Lol. ‘I was blown away by what she came up with.’
Indeed, Sally originally wrote it for a friend’s wedding in a French monastery with connections to the cult of Mary Magdalen, part of the feminine side of early Christianity that was later wiped out. ‘It was inspired by the Song of Solomon,’ Sally explains. ‘There’s nothing else like it in the Bible - it’s so sexy and womanly. So the track is a kind of pagan lady soul…’
From this peak of emotional intensity, ‘All This Is Bliss’ takes a turn into more introspective, darker waters. ‘Dust’, with its reflective Nina Walsh vocals, shifts into the appropriately-named ‘Can’t Sleep’, a late-night tune in which a restless beat is offset against a melody with a distinctly melancholic, the-party-really-is-over kind of feeling. If ‘Big Sky City’, with its deep choral overtones, is even moodier, ‘F.X. Halo’ and a final reprise of ‘Love Forgotten’ bring the album to a close on a much more optimistic, uplifting note.
3. Lucky man
That return to a lighter mood is wholly characteristic of Lol, who is a happy man - and knows it. ‘I’m a lucky sod,’ he grins. ‘I have a lot of mates who don’t much like what they do, who have to endure that Sunday night feeling every weekend. But come that end of the week, I’m actually looking forward to getting back to it.’
He also counts himself lucky to have found himself working in the increasingly diverse world of chill out. It all started three years ago, when he approached Roger Eno, whose work he knew and admired. In fact, recalls Roger, ‘Lol’s knowledge of what I was doing surprised me. It was quite remarkable - his interests go far beyond the club-based work he’s known for. And when I got the first mixes from him, I immediately thought ?This is going to work… he knows exactly what he’s doing.? ’
‘Damage’, the fruit of this collaboration, was what first brought Lol to the attention of Pete Lawrence. This resulted in an invitation to play at the Big Chill’s events at Sadler’s Wells and Larmer Tree Gardens, where Lol found himself totally in his element - he still talks about meeting Harold Budd there with completely innocent pleasure.
‘The Big Chill really revitalises me,’ he goes on to say. ‘I love the way they’ve managed to get such a totally open-minded audience together. Not like the club scene, where everyone tends to be in these little boxes. When I come back from the Chill I find myself listening to so much different stuff.’
The good news is that this is something that Lol expects to be doing a lot more of in the future. ‘I can’t really see myself continuing to play clubs for more than another five or ten years,’ he admits. ‘But chill out - I can keep making that kind of music till I’m seventy!’
What a thought. What a bloody lovely thought… may we all grow old before we die.
Freddie B., May 2001
'All This Is Bliss'
Lol Hammond at iTunes
Written: 22nd Mar, 02
Read: 3273 times
