Art Schop - The Fifth Hammer (2025) Hi-Res

Fifth Hammer” is the fifth studio release under the Art Schop moniker. The name Art Schop is derived from noted German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, whose philosophy is based around pessimism; he’s very quotable, his notable quotes include “A pessimist is an optimist in full possession of the facts” and “Just remember, once you’re over the hill you begin to pick up speed“.

Art Schop’s music catalogue illustrates the scope of Walker’s thinking across a range of subjects. The 2012 LP “Wolfswork” was inspired by the effects of the financial crisis and parallels to the rise and fall of the Greek Empire. The “Death Waits” series of releases; 2015’s “Death Waits I: Music & Fine Arts” and “Death Waits II: The Writers” (2019) are inspired by the lives and works of people such as David Bowie, Lou Reed and Michelangelo, and Dante, Sylvia Platha and James Joyce respectively, in particular the things in their lives that shaped their creative paths. The topic for 2021’s “Starguide” is the cosmos and humanity’s place in the universe. Heavy stuff indeed.

In addition to his musical career, Walker has written and published fiction and a book of philosophy around the nature of material existence and the meaning of life.

The title of “The Fifth Hammer” and indeed the album’s concept comes from Daniel Heller-Roazen’s book “The Fifth Hammer: Pythagoras and the Disharmony of the World“, which explores the works of philosophers such as Pythagoras, Leibniz and Kepler. The songs on the album expand on this and other philosophers like Wittgenstein and Nietzsche; in particular, disharmony and the effects it has on the world and the way things happen. This could also relate to Schopenhauer’s writings, which suggest that harmony is an illusion, replaced by suffering and discord.

All the songs on the album were written, arranged and recorded by Walker. In the main, the pieces on the record were performed solo by Walker; however, he was assisted in some cases by Chris Heinz on drums and percussion and also Nathaniel Wolkstein, who played violin and viola. Mixing was performed by Mark Nevers (Charlie Louvin, Andrew Bird, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Lambchop, Laura Cantrell).

The record begins with ‘All Philosophy Worth The Name‘, a slow, deliberate song that sets the tone for the LP; Walker’s voice is sounding a little like Johnny Cash here. ‘Katharina‘ is about Katharina Kepler, the mother of astronomer Johannes Kepler, who in the 17th century was tried as a witch and defended by her son, using logic and reason to combat the charges; after a case lasting six years, Katharina was freed.

‘Me, My Lover, Her Lover, Part 1‘ is where we get to learn about Pythagoras and a love ‘triangle’ leading to discovery of the fifth hammer. The story around the fifth hammer is that Greek philosopher Pythagoras came across five blacksmiths hammering in a forge; the sound they made together was beautiful; however, Pythagoras noticed that only four hammers were in harmony, the fifth was discordant and an outlier from the norm, so he discounted it. This was an error, as by being different to the others, the fifth hammer added something special to the sound and actually created harmony. In the song, Walker sings “I had a lover who had a lover (I mean, a lover that wasn’t me), A triangle described our relations; she claimed to love us equally, As I lay with my lover, I contemplated the span of her hypotenuse, It was an irrational number, none other than the square root of two“. Later we get “I left my lover to go walking, and heard the hammers at the forge, A perfect harmony described by four, only spoiled by the fifth in its discord, What do we do with the fifth hammer, We cast it away, into the river“.

‘The Only Answer‘ sounds pleasant enough at first listen, strings give it a nice, relaxed vibe (though the piano sounds a little foreboding), until you listen more intently and realise that the lyrics are very dark. Another court case, “Picture this, a steaming pipe, the court stenographer, glasses perched on her nose, The jury pale, it must be quite a shock to see the truth” and later “And the tram rattles down the rails, she smells the Danube, hears the golden bell, the world dissolves, she floats away“.

“Me, My Lover, Her Lover, Part 2” set to a haunting musical background, sees us return to the forge; this time from the perspective of a blacksmith who was using the fifth hammer: “I was working at the forge when in walked a man I’d seen before, without a word, he took the hammer from my hand, went to the door, and threw it in the river, Spent the next half hour studying the other four hammers, I could have saved him some time as I had all their weights and measures, Some people don’t want to believe that the world has no rhyme or reason, the hammers fall as they may, making noise, not music“.

‘The Underachiever‘ is from the point of view of a man who uses his rejection of Leibniz’s philosophy that the world is the best possible world that God could create, to act as he chooses and dismiss his own shortcomings on that basis. Walker sings “I don’t subscribe to the philosophy of Leibniz, that this is the best of all worlds, No, if god allowed the Holocaust, malaria, and famine, Surely, I can have a glass or two of wine, The world is clearly flawed, I’m sure you would agree, So why try to be perfect all the time“. The song concludes with “If god is an underachiever, why can’t I be an underachiever, too? ” While ‘Nietzsche’s Horse‘ relates to the time when German philosopher Federico Nietzsche witnessed a coachman whipping a horse because it would not move. Nietzsche approached the horse, embraced it, and he began to cry. Nietzsche was arrested for disturbing public order. It transpired that Nietzsche was suffering from dementia, and he would not speak again for the rest of his life.