Steve Hackett
Please Don't Touch

"The cutting of the umbilical cord," this is how this "Please don't Touch," released in '78, could be subtitled, when the divorce between Steve Hackett and Genesis was finalized at the end of the compilation of the album "Wind and Wuthering." The story goes that it was indeed a track penned by Hackett and left off the album that prompted the "Cut." Naturally, Steve immediately sprang into action, gathering his belongings and obtaining support from the famous Charisma to produce this second solo album. It's worth noting that at the time, our hero was only 28 years old, so a disagreement with his coworkers made sense and could have been resolved. The problem was that Steve had long been marginalized in their activities, a situation unacceptable for a musician of Hackett's talent and compositional acumen. His continued presence would inevitably have been an artistic castration, depriving us of several masterpieces he would produce over the next 40 years of his solo career.

As for this work, it's difficult to count it among them, as it already stands inferior to its excellent predecessor "Voyage of the Acolyte" and is marked by a fair compositional discontinuity, the result of evident relative haste in its gestation. This, despite or perhaps aided by the contingent of great artists enlisted for the occasion, including the late Richie Havens, whose unmistakable and powerful voice colors both closing tracks of the LP: the beautiful and melancholic "How Can I?", referencing a lost love of the protagonist less fortunate economically compared to his rival. Havens truly managed to musically capture the essence of American folk here. He also enriches "Icarus Ascending," which is much more in line with the author's style.

Another significant contribution is from Steve Walsh (voice of Kansas), who offers his honorable service in two forgettable tracks, the opening one and "Racing in A." The first is extensively adorned by Hackett's guitar, while the second is realized with notable percussion from teammate Phil Ehart and has clear Genesis-like reminiscences, enhanced and polished in the elegant finale by Steve's classical guitar, proceeding into the subsequent evocative "Kim," where he's accompanied on flute, or vice versa, by his brother John. Much more interesting and characteristic is "Carry Up on the Vicarage," which highlights an element Hackett often used: double vocal distortion (his own) at a higher and a lower tone, reminiscent and development of what Gabriel had once done excellently in Genesis. This track is musically inspired by him while thematically driven by an Agatha Christie mystery unfolding on this Watford street.

Another notable contribution can be found at the start of the second side of the album, materialized in the splendid voice of Randy Crawford, performer of "Hoping Love will Last." A beautiful, essentially pop track that, despite Steve's (slight) insertions, is out of place in this album, and one need only listen to the excellent title track to notice, passing through the "Land of a Thousand Autumns" (but where is it?), introducing the most articulated and evolved instrumental piece of the entire work: "Please don't Touch," which is precisely the track that led to the Great Divorce, the straw that broke the camel's back for Genesis. Listening to its quality, one can only understand Hackett's reasons, less so those of Collins and company, except perhaps Steve had become too musically imposing for the direction they planned. Almost confirming such a break is the abrupt transition to "The Voice of Necam," a tribute to the "instrument" used to create it (an automated mixing console) and concluded in the usual splendid style with classical guitar. Speaking of instrumental novelties in "Please don't Touch," Hackett uses for the first time a Roland GR-500, a guitar synthesized through an external module and released just then.

The album's charming cover, still the work of designer Kim Poor as it will be for several subsequent LPs, depicts a theatrical attack on a Victorian couple by automaton toys, somewhat reminiscent of the film "Blade Runner," to which it owes inspiration. The rating is 3.5, which I reluctantly round up to 4, as a posthumous solidarity with Steve, who certainly suffered from what happened in the course of his production.