Item #40919 Three open reel tapes, including recordings of William Burroughs reading “Burroughs Called the Law”, “The Master of Time”, and other cut-up texts, probably recorded in Tangier, c. 1963, as well as street sounds recorded by him at 210 Centre Street, New York, in 1965. William S. BURROUGHS.
Three open reel tapes, including recordings of William Burroughs reading “Burroughs Called the Law”, “The Master of Time”, and other cut-up texts, probably recorded in Tangier, c. 1963, as well as street sounds recorded by him at 210 Centre Street, New York, in 1965.
Three open reel tapes, including recordings of William Burroughs reading “Burroughs Called the Law”, “The Master of Time”, and other cut-up texts, probably recorded in Tangier, c. 1963, as well as street sounds recorded by him at 210 Centre Street, New York, in 1965.

20.

Three open reel tapes, including recordings of William Burroughs reading “Burroughs Called the Law”, “The Master of Time”, and other cut-up texts, probably recorded in Tangier, c. 1963, as well as street sounds recorded by him at 210 Centre Street, New York, in 1965.

Quarter inch tape on 5-inch plastic spools. Total duration c. 60.00; 7.5 and 3.75 ips. Housed in original tape boxes, one of them bearing Burroughs’ holograph title in red ink, “The Street I”.

i) The first tape (21.44; 3.75 + 7.5 ips), probably recorded by Ian Sommerville in Tangier, c. 1963, begins with an unidentified English voice in conversation with Brion Gysin, who makes a brief comment in response (0.18), and Burroughs reading from “The Last Words of Hassan-i Sabbah” in Spanish (1.30).

This is followed by further cut-up texts, “Burroughs Called the Law” (a different and longer version than the one released on “Break Through in Grey Room”) and “The Master of Time”. Both cut-ups are derived from “The Last Words of Hassan-i Sabbah” and relate to the texts subsequently published in “Battle Instructions” (Schönebeck: Moloko Plus, 2020).

In the tape’s final 6 minutes or so, Burroughs reads more cut-ups, before incanting Gysin’s permutated poem, “I Am That I Am”; both sections feature a background of frantically speeded up tape effects, similar to those heard on the “Towers Open Fire” soundtrack. The tape ends with a minute of Jajouka music.

Contained in a worn BBC tape box with blue label attached and “Burroughs Willy The Rat” written out in red along one side.

ii) Tape two (11.29; 7.5 ips) contains a series of short recordings of tape cut-ups of Burroughs’ voice, multi-tracked and overdubbed, including readings from the ‘Uranian Willy’ section of “The Soft Machine”, as well as single lines (“And just let me tell you” and “The recordings remain”, for example). Probably recorded in Tangier by Ian Sommerville, c. 1963.

The final part, and the longest at almost 5 minutes, is a sophisticated recording featuring a repetitive loop of Burroughs declaring “Word Falling” played on two separate tape machines that gradually go out of synch, distort and reverb until they create an insistent rhythmic pattern, before combining again at the very end. The powerful effect is comparable to and pre-dates Steve Reich’s early tape compositions “It’s Gonna Rain” and “Come Out”.

Contained in a British Tele Tape box with ‘WSB’ written in red to four sides.

iii) The third tape (26.28; 3.75 ips) contains street sounds recorded by Burroughs from his New York apartment at 210 Centre Street in 1965. The tape recorder, possibly positioned by him on the fire escape at the front of the building, captures the ambient sound of pneumatic drills (which crop up on “Old Farmers’ Almanac”, item 19ii), road traffic and car horns honking (Burroughs’ voice is heard very briefly in the background).

Burroughs first expressed his ideas about the use of recordings as revolutionary weapons in “The Invisible Generation”, published in International Times and the Los Angeles Free Press in 1966. In “Electronic Revolution” (1970/71), he wrote: “The techniques here described are in use by the CIA and agents of other countries... Ten years ago they were making systematic street recordings in every district of Paris… Making street recordings and playing them back, you will hear things you do not remember, sometimes said in a loud clear voice, must have been quite close to you, nor do you necessarily remember them when you hear the recording back”.

The tape is listed in the “Catalogue of the William S. Burroughs Archive II” (Bonn/Basel: Expanded Media Editions, 2024) under the section headed “The WSB Tape Collection of Am Here Books”.

Contained in a Ferrodynamics box, titled by Burroughs in red ink holograph, “The Street I”.

Tapes digitised and transferred to three CDs.

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