A Black Box

A Black Box
Studio album by Peter Hammill
Released	August 1980
Recorded	November 1979 – April 1980
Studio	Sofa Sound, Wiltshire
Genre	Art rock
Label	S-Type
Producer	Peter Hammill
Peter Hammill chronology
pH7 (1979) A Black Box (1980) Sitting Targets (1981)

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[1]
Record Mirror	(elusive)[2]

A Black Box is the ninth studio album by Peter Hammill, released on S-Type Records in August 1980.

Hammill performed nearly all the instrumentation himself, including the drum parts, a task he had first undertaken on his previous album pH7. His ex-Van der Graaf Generator colleague David Jackson also made a guest appearance, along with David Ferguson of the new-wave band Random Hold, whose debut album Hammill had produced.

Side 1 of the record featured a collection of songs, while side 2 was devoted to "Flight", a lengthy multi-section song. This was the first time Hammill had included a lengthy song of this type on one of his solo albums.

The short-lived S-Type label (the name was a pun on "stereo-type"), on which the album was originally released, was set up by Hammill and his then manager Gail Colson. Colson had formerly been a director at Hammill's previous record company, Charisma Records, who had dropped him from their roster just prior to the recording of A Black Box. The S-Type label does not appear to have been a successful business project, and the album was later licensed to Virgin Records, who have since also acquired Hammill's Charisma catalogue.

All songs written by Peter Hammill, except where noted.

• Peter Hammill – vocals, guitar, keyboards, drums, bass
• David Jackson – saxophone, flute on 4 and 8
• David Ferguson – synthesizer and tambourine on 4, 6 and 7

• Peter Hammill – recording engineer (Sofa Sound, Wiltshire)
• David Lord – mixing (Crescent Studios, Bath)