VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR

“From what tooth or claw does murder spring?/From what flesh or blood does passion?”

The Charisma Years 1970–1978

VIRGIN

AS Mark E Smith once told Peter Hammill, it wasn’t Van Der Graaf Generator’s lyrics that sparked his love for the band, or the specifics of their music, nor even their academic complexity. It was the sheer power of the thing that drew him in. “He said, ‘You just have to go with the power,’” recalls Hammill today. “And I agree with that. Mark did like an aspect of noise, something Van Der Graaf have always liked. Sometimes that’s just noise brutality, and sometimes it’s noise in the musique concrète style.”

Even Van Der Graaf Generator’s detractors would be hard-pressed to deny, “but evidently he isn’t…”