William S. Burroughs et David Bowie | Fill Your Hand Stranger (1975)
Not many are aware of the intense relationship WSB struck with David Bowie in Berlin in the early 70s. The artistic result of this meeting of minds is Fill Your Hand Stranger , an extremely rare spoken word LP released by John Giorno in 1975. Bowie’s claustrophobic, eroticized whispering is meshed with Burrough’s ominous statements « Stranger/ we are here together. Stranger/ I’m coming for you ». Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson appears on track three and eight, his flute trills first cascade like mesh curtains over the two pirouetting voices then become more aggressive, prying the voices apart. His stabbing flute cries eventually take over in a shrill scream drowning out Burroughs’s deadpan poetry all together, and by then, Bowie’s breathy suggestions are long exhaled.
Anne Hilde Neset, The Wire (Issue 918)