Back to top
27.
Nothing Here Now but the Recordings.
London: Industrial Records, 1981. LP record (IR 0016).
Cut-ups and other tape recorder experiments from Burroughs’ archives, dating from 1959 to 1978, but mainly from the early 60s, compiled by Peter Christopherson and James Grauerholz. Front cover photograph and sleeve design by Christopherson; sleeve notes by Genesis P-Orridge (an announcement for the album in Industrial News in 1980 read: “We recommend all writings by William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin as some of the most important alchemical writing relating to mass media, control processes, sexuality and humankind”).
The album (the title for which came from “The Ticket That Exploded”) includes the “Earliest surviving cut-up tape”, recorded during a conversation between Brion Gysin, Gregory Corso, William Burroughs and (probably) Sinclair Beiles at the Beat Hotel in 1959, as well as examples of the cut-up technique applied to radio and TV news broadcasts; experiments with the inching technique and throat microphones; and Burroughs reading “Last Words of Hassan Sabbah”, recorded by Ian Sommerville at the Empress Hotel in London, c. 1960-61.
Disc Near Mint in Very Good plus sleeve.
