***This record is divided into two sections. The first part is the title track and takes up most of side one. Ali's Smile was first published in 1971 and was privately released as a one-sided LP, in an edition of 99 copies. It came in a plain sleeve with a hardback copy of the spoken text, and was sold exclusively through Unicorn Bookshop in Brighton, UK. Bill Butler, the bookshop owner, was still paying off a viciously punitive fine and associated court costs imposed in 1968 after a guilty verdict in an obscenity trial. Burroughs, a "fellow American", was only too happy to help out by letting him have the rights to the recording. Rumors abound as to how many copies of the LP actually sold and how many were damaged after having been left on a heater, but, whatever the facts, this magnanimous gesture would still have been very handy. This is the first official reissue of this lost audio recording. A tale of revenge, heartless cruelty and amulet power, muddied with frequent recourse to Scientological references. The rest of the LP is taken up with 33 minutes of audio tape supplied by Burroughs in answer to various questions mailed to him by a freelance journalist. It also includes several readings from material he was working on at the time. The recordings date from 1963, which places them as some of, if not the, earliest in-depth recordings of his readings and thoughts. As this material dates from just before...
LP $29.50
07/23/2021
***AVAILABLE AGAIN!!! Paradigm Discs presents Curse Go Back, tape experiments from William S. Burroughs. William Burroughs was in and out of London from the mid-50s to 1974 and for several years quite settled in a flat near Piccadilly. During this latter time he developed and refined the techniques he used for creating cut-ups on tape. Working closely with Ian Sommerville, who helped acquire, and no doubt maintain, the various tape recorders that Burroughs used and abused in these experimental works. The work here is in two sections, which in their original form lasted for over an hour and first appeared in 1998 under the name Electronic Revolution as a free CD with Issue One of the French magazine Crash. The CD was quickly withdrawn with maybe only 100 copies finding their way into circulation. This edition is edited down to 46 minutes and comprises the core of the original recording. It employs the now familiar techniques of random drop-ins and cut-ups of readings. The readings themselves are also cut-ups of words on the page. The first section of the tape uses further processing by means of a second tape recorder. Recorded in Duke Street in 1968, the tape was then passed on to Brion Gysin in Paris where it remained in his archive until 1998. This is the first readily available edition of an hypnotic and meditative recording that examines the hidden power of words. Closer to work of sound poetry than anything literary. The album...
LP $26.50
08/19/2016
***Two obscure Japanese underground releases from the mid-'70s and/or '80s, reissued on a single CD. Crazed mantric rock by a group about which no information was ever given, and no production date or location is indicated. Long pieces of hypnotic free form rock hysteria with heavily fuzzed electric guitar à la Faust; Damo Suzuki-like vocal gibber; rhythm courtesy of sleigh bells, tambourine, bass drum and other whackadoo; hard-blown harmonica sludge; and plenty of masterful keeko-bleeko: flute, zither, mandolin, acoustic guitar and synth, tape loops, electronics, environmental sounds, backwards tapes and the hysterical laughter of Stan Laurel. UK import.
CD $17.25
11/30/2004