IRON HORSE

Description

When YOUTH (Killing Joke bassist) meets ALAN GINSBERG (illustrious American Poet)…“Iron Horse” by Allen Ginsberg & Youth is a new album that reinvents and follows Ginsberg’s epic poem, Iron Horse.The poem is a poignant snapshot of counter-cultural America in 1966, documenting a summer journey across the USA by train, through Ginsberg’s laser-focused eye for detail. The poem itself has only previously been published in a limited edition by City Lights Books in 1974.Recorded by Youth in the Andalusian mountains in Spain during the tough lockdown of Autumn 2021, the new album sees sounds woven into spoken word with Ginsberg’s narration of his encounter with young soldiers en route to the Vietnam War and features a haunting vocal chorus from Siobhan Fahey. The ambient soundscape poignantly captures the ebb and flow of the poem and the rhythm of the train and takes us on a psychedelic journey through the darkness and beauty of summer 1966.The album sits somewhere between The KLF’s Chill Out and Ash Ra Temple’s cosmic ambient drone and is a tribute to Ginsberg’s pioneering rebel spirit, his poetry, and his influence on the world and on youth itself.