We Persuade Ourselves, We Are Immortal by The Amorphous Androgynous
Release date: November 20, 2020Label: fsoldigital
“Inch by inch/And day by day/Still we count the time away/Waiting on the Lutine Bell/And the story that it tells.” Quite an introductive lyric to get you up and running for the journey that awaits us. For Peter Hammill and The Amorphous Androgynous, it is a step beyond science-fiction like you’ve never heard it before.
We Persuade Ourselves, We Are Immortal is a breathtaking story that is brought to life as an animated space rock opera in the realms between the illustrated stories of Heavy Metal and Hayao Miyazaki’s films brought to life. Four years in the making with 100 musicians, a 25-piece string orchestra, and a 50-piece choir from The Chesterfield Philharmonic.
Not only that Gaz, Brian, and Peter are involved with this mind-blowing project, but allowing to have musicians including The Jam and The Style Council’s Paul Weller, Caravan’s Brian Hopper, and Kendra Frost to name a few, it shows that they aren’t just band members lending the two a helping hand, but more of a team working together to bring this project to life.
Gaz Cobain and Brian Dougans have been around for 33 years since launching back in 1988 in Manchester as The Future Sound of London (FSOL). Not only their known for their hit single ‘Papua New Guinea’ in 1991 from their debut album Accelerator, it featured samples of Meat Beat Manifesto’s ‘Radio Babylon’ and Dead Can Dance’s ‘Dawn of the Iconoclast’ with Lisa Gerrard’s vocals.
The song would later appear in the soundtrack to Ralph Bakshi’s 1992 cult classic, Cool World starring Brad Pitt, Gabriel Byrne, and Kim Basinger. Gaz and Brian would later collaborated with Klaus Schulze, Ozric Tentacles, and Robert Fripp for their 1994 release, Lifeforms. But just before they released their second album, in 1993 they went further into the ambient landscape entitled, Tales of Ephidrina under an alias name, Amorphous Androgynous.
They soon began to delve into the oceanic waters of Progressive and Psychedelic sounds with 2002’s The Isness and 2005’s Alice in Ultraland. Then they started going into the compilation route of A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble (Exploding In Your Mind) tipping their hats to Finders Keepers founder, Andy Votel who had done a set on the bill with the duo at the 2009 Green Man Festival from August 21st to August 23rd of that year along with Hawkwind, Wilco, and Emmy The Great.
But let’s get straight onwards to We Persuade Ourselves, We Are Immortal. As I’ve mentioned earlier, it is like an animated space rock opera brought to life. So if you think it’s a nod to the Star Wars franchise or something straight out of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, guess what? You got the wrong movie.
From the opening title-track, you can feel a presence of Leiji Matsumoto’s anime epic, Galaxy Express 999 and its score from Nozomi Aoki. You can imagine Peter Hammill singing to the mysterious female figure Maetel on what is happening beyond our universe. And the image he describes to her, is not a pleasant sight.
You can feel Maetel’s sympathy towards him on what is happening around planet Earth as the destruction becomes a chaotic nightmare. I love how it goes into a symphonic voyage with its Floydian landscape capturing their early years as an underground band.
Blaring Saxes, harmonizing vocals, and orchestral landscapes with some Magma-like riffs for each of the band members doing a call-and-response tag. Quite an operatic voyage that we as listeners are embarking on.
‘Hymortality’ is a swirling nightmarish trip for The Amorphous Androgynous to embark on a star-gate sequence with a psychedelic hallucinated nightmare. We can imagine ourselves landing on this strange deserted planet with guitars howling throughout the sandstorms before Gaz and Brian make another jump to light-speed for the picking Bass and howling synthesizers to go for round trip.
‘Immortality Break’ has these Saxes go for another level as the lyrical textures become a chant-like phrase that would have made Christian Vander smile for what he’s hearing. String quartet slashing back and forth, followed by mournful organ sounds, its detailing the nightmare has arrived on planet Earth. And all hell has broken loose.
Feeling as if the train has stopped unexpectedly for Maetel to take a breather after she is moved by Hammill’s story, ‘Physically I’m Here, Mentally Far, Far Away’ is an Entr’acte of sorts. We imagine the beautiful landscapes and bubbling sound effects before getting down to the dance floor and boogie for a ‘Psych Recap’.
Trance and Prog-Trip-Hop to the core! Voice of Hammill fills the club venue as the dance goes throughout the night until dawn with its Revolver-like structures by continuing the section of ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’. As Peter leaves the train to say farewell for a ‘Synthony on a Theme of Mortality’, you can feel crossover sections between Tangerine Dream meets Vangelis in the late ‘70s with a cry of Aphrodite Child’s guitarist Silver Koulouris textures thrown
in.
Now I’m not sure about this, but I believe its Kendra’s voice setting this lonely-sque structures on what has happened. She delivers the styles of Clare Torry’s arrangements to follow Maetel’s adventure, not knowing where the train will stop next. We Persuade Ourselves, We Are Immortal will be talked about in the years to come in the roaring ‘20s.
It shows how this amazing collaboration between both The Amorphous Androgynous and Peter Hammill can cook up a mind-blowing story brought to life right in front of you. And believe me, I will say this once, and I will say it again, it is their own imaginative 2D animated space rock opera that is out of this world!
