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17.
Two open reel tapes featuring approximately 100 minutes of recordings made by William Burroughs in Tangier, New York and London c. 1964/1965/1972.
Quarter inch tape on two 10.5-inch aluminium NAB reels. 70.00 + 32.00; recording speeds vary (7.5 + 3.75 ips).
i) The first part of the first tape (10.53) consists of cut-up radio broadcasts; the second section (approx. 20.00) comprises a recording of “One Step Beyond”, an American TV documentary inspired by Andrija Puharich (who features in the programme) and his book “The Sacred Mushroom: Key to the Door of Eternity”; the third part (approx. 26.00) features radio and other cut-up recordings intersecting with an unidentified person reading from a critical text on Burroughs, with Burroughs’ cut-in responses; and the fourth section (13.47) features cut-up and tape intersections of Burroughs cut-in with the voice of John McMaster (the ‘Pope of Scientology’) who is auditing him, along with background music from an acoustic guitar (player unidentified) and speeded up and slowed down tape hiss as cut-ups. Contained in a plain white tape box, with Barry Miles’s holograph notes to lower panel (the recordings originate from the same source as the ones he curated for the triple CD “Real English Tea Made Here” [item #38]).
ii) The second tape comprises “The Piper Pulled Down the Sky”, a multi-layer tape recorded early in 1964 in Tangier with a top layer added later in New York, and “Towers Open Fire”, recorded in 1964 in either Tangier or New York. Both were included on “Real English Tea Made Here”. Contained in a plain white tape box, with Miles’s holograph notes to lower panel (box slightly worn).
Tapes digitised and transferred to three CDs.