What attracted us to the latest single from Pat Kelly’s album Hook, which will be released on March 6th? Well, there are many fine reasons, but perhaps the finest of them all was that the press release contained this information and an important comparison: Another World is the opener of the album, in which Kelly’s narrator ultimately question whether or not progress may not be possible for the human race. The song culminates in a paranoiac, Philip K. Dick-like moment of intrigue: “Here are the facts I’m trying to sort / Well, I met a man at the airport / He said everything’s okay / But someone else said it’s too late / For another world.”
Yes, whether it is Robert Childan falling through alternate worlds, or Horselover Fat exploring his own life from a third person perspective, any mention of the rather tragic in many ways Phillip K. Dick is going to get some attention. If we get a flood of such references though don’t be surprised if we change out authorial viewpoint, so it goes.
On Hook, Paul Kelly’s first release in five years (following 2021’s Bored Mortician), and also, numerist readers will want to note, his fifth album, we find a set of songs that evoke self-doubt, delusional ambition, anger, and wistfulness. Kelly is joined on the album by regular contributors keyboardist and backing vocalist Winston Cook-Wilson of Office Culture, guitarist and bassist Tim Good, and backing vocalist and trumpet player Jess Tambellini. Kelly’s Glamour Gowns labelmate Andrew Daly Frank also joins him, adding additional guitar parts.
