This translucent red vinyl version of the 45 released in 1990 by Singles Only Label (SOL) features two of the four tracks from the 1985 12" The Elvis of Letters put out by William S. Burroughs and Gus Van Sant, "Millions of Images" and "The Hipster Be-bop Junkie." Fun fact: SOL was co-founded by none other than Hüsker Dü's Bob Mould!
Well, if you like Burroughs' baritone drone-like voice, then you'll probably enjoy these tracks. If you hate Burroughs' vocal delivery, well, you'll probably not like these tracks very much. And if you're indifferent to Burroughs' voice, but enjoy some swinging jazzy acoustic guitar type noodling, then you might well love these tracks!
The guitar work on these songs--at least the guitar as called "word guitar"--is provided by one Doug Cooeyate (as credited on the sleeve) and is absolutely lovely! It really goes a long way to making these tracks delightful to listen to and seems to complement Burroughs' vocals extremely well. A spacey sort of airy sounding layered surf jam, well, more or less. Van Sant is credited with "music" on this release, so maybe he plays some guitar as well? Since I'm not really familiar with what "word guitar" is supposed to be, it is difficult for me to distinguish what may or may not be played by Cooeyate.
Let's simply put it like this: the guitar on these tracks is a pleasure to hear and makes these songs great to listen to.
"Millions of Images" is a more or less straight forward sounding track. Sure, some of the guitar tracks are processed with some effects--a bit of reverb, probably, some delay here and there--and perhaps some of the arrangement is a little avant-garde, but I wouldn't say there is a whole lot of "experimentalism" going on in this particular piece. It's simply some really good music with Burroughs' narrated lyrics. "The Hippster Be-bop Junkie," on the other hand, while still very recognizable as a more traditional sounding "song" goes a bit more into experimentalism via manipulations of Burroughs' voice tracks along with a more distinct avant-garde approach to the resulting sound of these manipulations.
This is a great little 45 to throw on now and then for some swingingly mellow avant-garde listening. I enjoy Burroughs' voice and, again, the guitar work on these songs is really great. I give this release eight ears out of ten.
Interested listeners can find a video for Millions of Images on YouTube and hear The Hipster Be-bop Junkie at Grooveshark.
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