Steve Hackett
Defector

The translation of Defector is: fugitive, the one who abandons. And in the title of this 1980 album, there is probably the most emotional and true detachment from what had recently marked Steve Hackett's career, that is, belonging to a historic English prog group, the Genesis. Hackett's choice to leave the group that was once Gabriel's was not painful. In fact, he had come into collision with the direction the other three members wanted to take the group's music after "Wind and Wuthering." We could even say that the London guitarist was now suffocated by the group, wanting to continue a discourse of quality based on experimentation and coherence more of intellectual honesty than of musical line. After the first record when he was still within Genesis, and after the subsequent two which were also great commercial successes ("Spectral Mornings" and "Please, Don't Touch"), here the artist seems definitively set on his solo career "only," and I believe he did not randomly choose this title. "Defector," therefore... fugitive from commercial schemes in which he would have felt imprisoned forever if he had chosen the path of easy profit like Collins, Rutherford, and Banks. In my opinion, it was his exit from Genesis that marked their decline in taste and quality more than the "defection" of the great Peter Gabriel did.

This is an album that is markedly prog in the most classic sense of the term, where moments of highly emotional tension alternate with others of broad breath, drawing heavily from rock and classical music. Not surprisingly, over time Hackett's career will turn into a sort of duality with classicizing and acoustic albums and others electric where experimentation and musical contamination will be the masters.

The opening track of Defector is "The Steppes", with a flute intro performed by his faithful brother John (a highly appreciated artist in the classical music realm) and a sudden drum entry very marked with the Taurus Moog in full blast. Steve's entrance with his LesPaul is thrilling, with one of the most classically Hackettian tones. It's a fairly long piece that perfectly reconstructs sonically what we could imagine by closing our eyes and thinking of the steppes. Excellent, wonderful in its only apparent coldness.

The end of "The Steppes" fades into the mix of the next track, the fast and "virtuosic" "Time to get Out". Definitely a fast rhythm, a keyboard background creating a "floor" of sound for the choral singing. Interludes of pure guitar virtuosity that break the chorus characterize the piece. Almost orchestral effect with a finale where Steve's riffs are played with finger tapping, a method he himself invented and today repeated a thousand and a thousand times by smoky and useless metal guitarists.

The next piece is titled "Slogans" and is a true sound patchwork starting with a vocoder that distorts the voice before introducing the whole band, which on a very fast rhythm, indulges in very avant-garde sound embellishments. Here too, finger tapping is prominently featured and the band accompanying Steve Hackett displays a beautiful demonstration of compactness.

The following "Leaving" is a very delicate acoustic track with dreamy atmospheres, with choirs and almost "orchestral" arrangement that at times makes one think of great film music somewhat in the style of Morricone (an artist loved by Hackett, to the point that in one of his "live" performances, there's even the soundtrack of Cinema Paradiso).

"Two Vamps as Guests" is a short instrumental piece performed with classical guitar with the usual class. In pieces like this, Hackett seems to be a guitarist of classical extraction, yet he is a perfect autodidact!

Further proof of how Hackett is removed from easily creating catchy and dull pieces and would never have accepted to continue on the path that Genesis wanted to take comes with an instrumental that makes you lose your mind, rich in breaks and full of classical-jazz contaminations. The title of the piece is "Jacuzzi", and it almost seems to be a true musical "arcimboldo," where the harmonic line is never flat but jagged with a flute in strong "vibrato" evidence and truly incredible guitar riffs. The composition of Jacuzzi must have been even more complicated than its execution, but beware, we don't have a piece where one is impressed only by the extraordinary instrumental virtuosity, one of those pieces like "listen to how good we are," no, nothing like that. It's still the great warmth that dominates. Wonderful the finale where the keyboard with the harpsichord timbre is also much exposed. Absolutely extraordinary.

An elegant piano solo introduces us to another gem: "Hammer in the Sand". This piece is performed solely by Hackett, who creates a "Weeping Guitar" effect, and Nick Magnus on keyboards. Evocative, captivating piece, imbued with drama, but it does not give a sense of tragedy; on the contrary, it is almost sunny.

Another acoustic track is the subsequent "The Toast", preceding the perhaps somewhat insignificant "The Show", played on funky rhythms but decidedly commercial; indeed, a 45 was made out of it. Certainly not the album's highlight, but I believe that when talking about great artists, one can also forgive some small misdeed.

To close Defector, there is a piece that surprises; it is "Sentimental Institution", sung by Steve with his voice manipulated to perfectly match the 1930s-style musical base. A brief closure of a superlative record.

To conclude this review, according to the writer, one aspect should be emphasized. At the time of Defector's release, Hackett was in a full rejection crisis towards Genesis, and perhaps he had all the reasons both for the reasons I explained at the beginning and because within the band in recent times, he had been sidelined in terms of his compositional contribution. He was even indifferent to the fact that Genesis had allowed him to become famous. Well, over time he greatly revised this position and today has reached greater balance on the matter, in the sense that he does not at all regret his choice to leave the group but sees with a more favorable disposition what he did together with them, to the point that today in his concerts, the Genesis song segment is rather substantial, always at least 4/5 songs. I believe this is the right position, but at the same time, I bless the day Steve decided to become a DEFECTOR.

DEFECTOR, 1980
Steve Hackett: Electric guitar, classical guitar, harmonica, voice
Nick Magnus: Keyboards
John Shearer: Drums
Dick Cadbury: Bass, pedals
John Hackett: Flute, electric guitar