Isaac Hayes-inspired low-down and dirty bass riff with haunting strings and a spaced-out feel. Hunter S Thompson was sent out by Playboy to cover the infamous Mint 400 Road race in Las Vegas. As he describes, ‘They sent him out here on this perfectly reasonable assignment – just a few photos of motorcycles and dune buggies racing around the desert – and now he was plunged, without realizing it, into the maw of some world beyond his ken. There was no way he could possibly understand what was happening. What were we doing out here? Was I just roaming around these Mint Hotel escalators in a drug frenzy of some kind or had I really come out here to Las Vegas to work on a story? This song, adapted from the track ‘Illuminate’ tells the story of life on the Vegas Strip, and the weirdos who attend it: ‘a society of armed masturbators. Gambling is the kicker here - sex is extra/weird trip for high rollers … house-whores for winners, hand jobs for the bad luck crowd.’ The album title comes from an essay by Thompson, one of the 'Beat Generation' of American writers of the 1950s/60s which also included William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg. The concept of the album is that it is located in the Mint Hotel and Casino on the Vegas Strip; to which every year come a horde of freaks, gamblers, whores and hangers-on for the 'Mint 400' desert road race. Each song takes a character from a Beat Generation writer and brings them alive musically. Thus each song has its own individual story, which you can follow if you're interested on https://www.hakimjamalmusic.com/blog Each song also has its own individual piece of artwork, created by the DALL_E Ai software from cutups of the lyrics or sentences from the writing. We've put a lot of work in trying to get the right sound - it's 'Lo-Fi' and I wanted to make it match the vibe of the sleeve, which Paul Wheatcroft created based on an old Dave Brubeck album cover. What I mean by this is that we have invested in some technology which allows us to reproduce as near as possible the authentic 'analogue' sounds of the era. This includes tape hiss, crackle and reverb settings from Abbey Road studios where '20 Golden Greats' was mastered.more