THE AEROSOL GREY MACHINE

VDGG's debut is a rather amateurish and clumsy affair that only rarely hints at things to come.

A few songs save it from utter forgetfulness. Afterwards has a nice leading melody. With a slightly updated sound this might have fit well on Hammill's debut Fool's Mate. Most of the tracks are droning affairs however with strong 60's pop and psychedelic influences. But it never comes near to the quality of say The Nice's or Pink Floyd's debut albums. There's one track I need to single out. Necromancer is really an excellent tune with a droning march rhythm that doesn't sit too far from Can's debut. It also has a nice playful and dramatic chorus and good vocal harmonies.

This was not re-issued in the recent batch of VDGG and Hammill remasters. So either there's a dispute over the ownership of the master tapes or also Hammill doesn't really regard this as a true VDGG album. In fact it was supposed to be his first solo album.