Sitting Targets

Sitting Targets
Sitting Targets
Studio album by Peter Hammill
Released	June 1981
Recorded	November 1980-February 1981
Studio	Sofa Sound, Wiltshire
Genre	Art rock
Length	44:24
Label	Virgin
Producer	Peter Hammill
Peter Hammill chronology

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	^[1]
Sounds	(surprising) ^[2]

Sitting Targets is the tenth studio album by Peter Hammill, released on Virgin Records in June 1981. It contains several songs in the raw new wave style typical of Hammill's work in the late 1970s and early 1980s, following the dissolution of his band Van der Graaf Generator, and one of his occasional tender ballads, "Ophelia". "Stranger Still", "Sign" and "Central Hotel" have all been regularly performed by Hammill live in recent^[when?] years.

"Ophelia" was re-worked for Hammill's 1984 album The Love Songs.

Artwork[edit]

The cover features crash test dummies in photographs supplied by the Ford Motor Company.

Track listing[edit]

All tracks are written by Peter Hammill

Side one
No.	Title	Length
1.	"Breakthrough"	4:01
2.	"My Experience"	3:20
3.	"Ophelia"	3:16
4.	"Empress's Clothes"	4:07
5.	"Glue"	3:49
6.	"Hesitation"	4:11
Total length:		22:41

Side two
No.	Title	Length
1.	"Sitting Targets"	5:27
2.	"Stranger Still"	5:00
3.	"Sign"	3:50
4.	"What I Did"	3:43
5.	"Central Hotel"	4:42
Total length:		22:41

Personnel[edit]

Peter Hammill - vocals, guitar, keyboards
Guy Evans - drums (tracks: 1,2,6,7,9)
David Jackson - saxophone, flute (tracks: 4,6,7,11)
Morris Pert - percussion (tracks: 4,7,10)
Phil Harrison - synthesisers (tracks: 3,8,9)

Technical[edit]

Peter Hammill - recording engineer (Sofa Sound, Wiltshire)
David Lord - mixing (Crescent Studios, Bath)
Rocking Russian - design
Ford Motor Company - photography

References[edit]

^ Couture, François. Sitting Targets at AllMusic
^ Sounds review

External links[edit]

Notes from an unofficial Peter Hammill website

[1] Couture, François. Sitting Targets at AllMusic

[2] Sounds review

[1]

[2]

v t e Peter Hammill
Studio albums	Fool's Mate (1971) Chameleon in the Shadow of the Night (1973) The Silent Corner and the Empty Stage (1974) In Camera (1974) Nadir's Big Chance (1975) Over (1977) The Future Now (1978) pH7 (1979) A Black Box (1980) Sitting Targets (1981) Enter K (1982) Loops and Reels (1983) Patience (1983) Skin (1986) And Close As This (1986) Spur of the Moment (1988) In a Foreign Town (1988) Out of Water (1990) The Fall of the House of Usher (1991) Fireships (1992) The Noise (1993) Roaring Forties (1994) X My Heart (1996) Sonix - Hybrid Experiments 1994-1996 (1996) Everyone You Hold (1997) This (1998) The Appointed Hour (1999) None of the Above (2000) What, Now? (2001) Unsung (2001) Clutch (2002) Incoherence (2004) Singularity (2006) Thin Air (2009) Consequences (2012) Other World (2014) ...All That Might Have Been... (2014) From the Trees (2017) In Translation (2021)
Live albums	The Margin (1985) Room Temperature (1990) There Goes the Daylight (1993) The Peel Sessions (1995) The Union Chapel Concert (1997) Typical (1999) The Margin + (2002) Veracious (2006) Pno Gtr Vox (2011) Pno Gtr Vox Box (2012) Peter Hammill & The K Group Live at Rockpalast 26/11/81 (2016) X/Ten (2018) Not Yet Not Now (2019)
Singles	"Red Shift" (1973) "Birthday Special" (1975) "Crying Wolf" (1977) "If I Could" (1978) "The Polaroid" (1979) "My Experience" (1981) "Paradox Drive" (1982) "Film Noir" (1983) "Just Good Friends" (1985) "Painting by Numbers" (1986) A Fix on the Mix (1992) ‎(CD, EP)
Live videos	In the Passionskirche (1992) Live at Rockpalast - Hamburg 1981 (2016)
Compilation albums	Vision (1978) The Love Songs (1984) The Essential Collection (1986) The Storm (Before the Calm) (1993) The Calm (After the Storm) (1993) Offensichtlich Goldfisch (1993) After the Show - A Collection (1996) Past Go: Collected (1996) The Thin Man Sings Ballads (2002)
Collaborators	Judge Smith David Jackson Guy Evans John Ellis Nic Potter Roger Eno Stuart Gordon