Fernando Pessoa: "I will not come when you call"

Music: "Impromptu in E Minor" by Clark-Hutchinson Painter: Fabio Calvetti xCS FERNANDO PESSOA–HIMSELF "What I am essentially—behind the involuntary masks of poet, logical reasoner and so forth—is a dramatist. My spontaneous tendency to depersonalization, which I mentioned in my last letter to explain the existence of my heteronyms, naturally leads to this definition. And so I do not evolve, I simply JOURNEY. ( ...) I continuously change personality, I keep enlarging (and here there is a kind of evolution) my capacity to create new characters, new forms of pretending that I understand the world or, more accurately, that the world can be understood. " (from a letter of Pessoa dated 20 January 1935) (Thanks to Manuel Santos) "I was doing the Indian influenced stuff in The Sons Of Fred in about 1964/5 .The Blues was a digression into another genre . A=MH2 was roughly what I was doing in the Sam Gopal Dream. The only record of that band which contained Pete Sears, Sam Gopal and Mick Hutchinson was the film that Jimi Hendrx took of us at Olympia. That band missed out on a record deal by taking huge amounts of speed when the record industry tuned out to see us at the Speakeasy . We played badly and told crap jokes all night. Hendrix came up for a jam, he fell over and knocked one of the amps over. I played bass and Pete Sears played organ." Written by Mick Hutchinson. The following are other peoples versions: Andy Clark and Mick Hutchinson recorded four semi-legendary LPs of drug/scatter/raga-blues between 1969 and 1971. The first album – Blues – wasn’t released until a long time after the band had split up. Its been described elsewhere as "…a great record of swinging, pumping blues that fits the pattern of early British blues rock, when bands like Fleetwood Mac, Chicken Shack or Groundhogs started to explore their own new sounds, leaving behind the limitations of the traditional blues form". There is some fine guitar work on this – as on all Clark Hutchinson albums – but the standout track for me has to be "The Summer Seems Longer". Nearly ten minutes long, this slow, reflective blues song looks back at a lost time and hints at the sad, troubled mood which dominated their last recording, Gestalt. Mick Hutchinson was – and still is – a gifted guitarist who had began his career playing Indian style music with the tabla expert Sam Gopal. Although he never recorded with Sam Gopal’s Dream – a young guitarist named Lemmy eventually fulfilled this role – Hutchinson and Gopal played together at the legendary 14 hour Technicolour Dream at London’s Alexandra Palace in April of 1967. The list of bands who appeared – or claim to have appeared – at this extraordinary event reads like a who’s who of British psychedelia. Certainly The Crazy World of Arthur Brown were there, with Brown setting his hair on fire at one point, and an early incarnation of Gong. The Pink Floyd headlined. Later, he teamed up with the multi-instrumentalist Andy Clark. They both played a variety of instruments and this abundance of talent was brought to bear on the extraordinary two man album A=MH² which they recorded during two hectic 12 hours sessions in 1969 for release on the Nova label. The basis of their sound is built around Hutchinson's powerful neo-Eastern style guitar playing, which is given full rein on such tracks as the 13 minute raga epic 'Improvisation On An Indian Scale'. His guitar playing is also showcased in a different setting on the more relaxed, classical piece 'Acapulco Gold', while the pair attack a variety of instruments including, keyboards, saxes, flutes, bongos and bagpipes on 'Improvisation On A Modal Scale'. 'Impromptu In E Minor' and 'Textures In ¾' complete an extraordinary album packed with hypnotic themes. Regarded as a groundbreaking album in its day by John Peel, this set of rare performances sounds like nothing else I can call to mind. Thirty-something years later it still makes arresting listening.

Added 7 Apr 2026