"Nothing here now but the recordings" was an album compiled by Genesis of William S.Burroughs audio work, Released via Industrial records in 1980.
Genesis P-Orridge, founder of Throbbing Gristle, salvaged these recordings from Burroughs’ archives and was responsible for their preservation and release. The recordings highlight Burroughs’ influence on concrete poetry and industrial music. The recordings also spotlight Burroughs’ link with the sound experiments of Carl Weissner and Henri Chopin who published Burroughs on vinyl and in magazines in the late 1960′s and early 1970′s.
Notes on the release follow, all borrowed from the extensive Burroughs archive site http://realitystudio.org/
Borrowed from the article The Lost Tapes of Carl Weissner, Claude Pélieu and Mary Beach, 1967-1969
by Edward S. Robinson
...Burroughs’ own recordings, however, remained in the vaults. Initially recorded for the purposes of his own personal research, the tapes were not intended for public consumption. It wasn Genesis P-Orridge of Throbbing Gristle who convinced Burroughs to allow him to release a selection of these experiments commercially. After spending many long hours going through the tapes, Orridge compiled the hour’s worth of material that was released as Nothing Here Now But the Recordings on Industrial Records in 1980
.Nevertheless, Burroughs’ influence on music, particularly the music of the avant-garde, precedes the public release of his experimental recordings, primarily on account of his book Electronic Revolution (1970, 1972, 1976), which expounds the theoretical contexts of some of his practical experiments with audio. Throbbing Gristle were among the first to explore the possibilities of using tape loops, cut-ups, samples and “found sounds” to make music. It was in this work that Burroughs’ influence on music became truly tangible.This was true of many of the bands involved in the Industrial scene that exploded on both sides of the Atlantic between 1978 and 1984. They immersed themselves in studio experimentation and the application of techniques first explored by Burroughs and Gysin some 20 years previous. The reason for the delayed spread of the Virus in sound recordings was largely due to the lack of technology to facilitate widespread experimentation prior to 1978. But once Burroughs and Gysin had made the “breakthrough,” it was almost inevitable that their ideas would spread.
The appeal of Electronic Revolution is obvious. While those who had followed Burroughs’ writing through the cut-up experiments would have been able to admire the many qualities of the writing, and even the methodology behind it, to the extent that it was possible to “write like Burroughs,” Electronic Revolution revealed new possibilities, demonstrating the potential for the written word to develop and mutate in new directions off the page. It also represented a “call to arms” for dissenters, providing as it did directions for sonic terrorism with the potential for “real” results:
…make recordings and take pictures of some location you wish to discommode or destroy, now play recordings back and take more pictures, will result in accidents, fires, removals. Especially the latter. The target moves. We carried out this operation with the Scientology Center at 37 Fitzroy Street. Some months later they moved to 68 Tottenham Court Road, where a similar operation was carried out…
Like Naked Lunch and The Third Mind, Electronic Revolution is a “how-to” book, a handbook, with instructions for the replication of the author’s techniques to achieve specific effects. “Riot sound effects can produce an actual riot in a riot situation. Recorded police whistles will draw cops. Recorded gunshots, and their guns are out.”14 Burroughs explained the function of site-specific recording and playback thus:
…playback on location can produce definite effects. Playing back recordings of an accident can produce another accident… We carried out a number of these operations: street recordings, cut in of other material, playback in the streets …(I recall I had cut in fire engines and while playing this tape back in the street fire engines passed.)… (I wonder if anybody but CIA agents read this article or thought of putting these techniques into actual operation.) Anybody who carries out similar experiments over a period of time will turn up more “coincidences” than the law of averages allows.
It was the capacity to achieve a specific desired effect, as Burroughs’ empirical testing of the theories demonstrated, which proved a significant factor in the book’s appeal to a certain audience. Although Burroughs believed that “the influence of fiction is not direct,” he always intended for his writing to have a tangible effect upon the reader in some way — after all, “if your writing had no effect, then you would have something to worry about.”
Showing posts with label Brion Gysin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brion Gysin. Show all posts
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
V. Vale RE/Search on Brion Gysin, William Burroughs, Derek Jarman, Genesis P-Orridge
V. Vale talks about his 6-year relationship with BRION GYSIN & the resulting archive -- photographs, interview cassettes, color slides of artworks, books, plus William S. Burroughs, Derek Jarman and Genesis Breyer P-Orridge.
RE/Search #4/5
http://researchpubs.com/Blog/?page_id=13&category=9&product_id=54
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Genesis Breyer P-Orridge Can Kill at a Distance of One Mile
re-published from
http://blogs.artinfo.com/16miles/2010/07/16/genesis-breyer-p-orridge-can-kill-at-a-distance-of-one-mile/
At the New Museum last night, senior curator Laura Hoptman introduced Genesis Breyer P-Orridge to a crowd in the museum’s theater by listing P-Orridge’s myriad accomplishments. She was a founder of British performance-art group COUM Transmissions, which evolved into the legendary industrial band Throbbing Gristle, Hoptman explained, and she has served as an unrelenting provocateur for almost four decades. But P-Orridge, sporting a black shirt emblazoned with the word “Womanizer” in white block letters, was having none of it. “I didn’t do anything!” she protested to Hoptman. “Nothing!”
This was more than false modesty. As P-Orridge’s career has progressed, she has increasingly refused to distinguish between her art and her life, undergoing surgical operations with her second wife, Lady Jaye Breyer, in pursuit of what the two termed pandrogyny, a genderless state. Breyer died in 2007, but P-Orridge has forged on. In order to match Breyer’s appearance, P-Orridge has undergone additional operations and had cosmetic tattoos added to her face to match Breyer’s eyebrows and beauty marks. She has announced that she and Breyer have become a single physical being. (P-Orridge refers to herself in the plural. For clarity, I am using singular feminine pronouns, as Hoptman did.)
But back to the occasion of the chat: Hoptman’s latest New Museum show, “Brion Gysin: Dream Machine,” has just opened, and P-Orridge happens to have been an old friend and admirer of Gysin. The crowd had gathered to hear P-Orridge talk about her late friend and, as the invitation promised, discuss “other matters.” She did not disappoint, providing a freewheeling series of anecdotes about Gysin, her life, and the art scene that once surrounded their mutual friend Williams S. Burroughs in downtown New York.
Here are some of the highlights from the talk:
•At public school in the U.K., a teacher nicknamed “Bob Brush” by the students — “As in toilet brush, for his mustache,” P-Orridge explained — told Porridge, “You obviously live in a completely different cultural universe than me,” and recommended she read Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. That experience led P-Orridge to the books of Burroughs (stolen from porn shops in London), and then Burroughs himself. Eventually, he met Gysin, who was a friend of Burroughs.
•P-Orridge attended a military school, she revealed, listing off to the audience a variety of the weaponry that was usually on hand: mortars, rifles, machine guns, artillery, and so forth. P-Orridge explained that she was trained as a first-class sniper while in school. “They taught me to kill at one mile!” she said, a glimmer in her eye. “Also, we began to start smoking hash at that time.”
•Many rare Gysin films exist today only because of P-Orridge. Burroughs apparently phoned P-Orridge frantically one day, telling him to call Gysin, who explained that a numbers of films kept in storage were going to be thrown in the garbage since the person paying the rent had died. P-Orridge explained that she cashed her welfare check, hopped in a taxi, and picked up the large, 35 mm reels just as workmen were carrying them to a Dumpster.
•“I realized that real lives were a lot more interesting than aesthetics,” P-Orridge said, describing what she learned early in her career by falling into the world of Burroughs and Gysin. Asked by Hoptman to describe pandrogyny, the state that P-Orridge is working to attain, the artist succinctly outlined her beliefs. Humans have transformed their world, she noted, but they have not changed themselves. They must rethink who they are as physical and spiritual things since they are currently out of touch with the world they have created, which has led to the tremendous destruction and violence that occurs today. (I’m describing this with considerably less eloquence than P-Orridge offered.) “We have to destroy all binary systems,” she said.
•Also, we have to colonize space. This would be easier if we could hibernate, like bears, P-Orridge noted. If we were cold-blooded, she continued, we wouldn’t even have to heat spaceships carrying space explorers. And, since there would be no gravity, we could even get rid of our legs. “Once you let go of the human body as a sacred thing, anything is possible,” she said.
•Describing a visit to Hoptman’s Gysin exhibition upstairs, P-Orridge mentioned standing in front of one of the artist’s works, which was blue work and features a psychic cross. “He was going to give that to me, but we couldn’t take it because it was too precious,” she told Hoptman. “We regret that.”
http://blogs.artinfo.com/16miles/2010/07/16/genesis-breyer-p-orridge-can-kill-at-a-distance-of-one-mile/
New Museum senior curator Laura Hoptman and Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, at the New Museum, New York, July 15, 2010. Photo 16 Miles
At the New Museum last night, senior curator Laura Hoptman introduced Genesis Breyer P-Orridge to a crowd in the museum’s theater by listing P-Orridge’s myriad accomplishments. She was a founder of British performance-art group COUM Transmissions, which evolved into the legendary industrial band Throbbing Gristle, Hoptman explained, and she has served as an unrelenting provocateur for almost four decades. But P-Orridge, sporting a black shirt emblazoned with the word “Womanizer” in white block letters, was having none of it. “I didn’t do anything!” she protested to Hoptman. “Nothing!”
This was more than false modesty. As P-Orridge’s career has progressed, she has increasingly refused to distinguish between her art and her life, undergoing surgical operations with her second wife, Lady Jaye Breyer, in pursuit of what the two termed pandrogyny, a genderless state. Breyer died in 2007, but P-Orridge has forged on. In order to match Breyer’s appearance, P-Orridge has undergone additional operations and had cosmetic tattoos added to her face to match Breyer’s eyebrows and beauty marks. She has announced that she and Breyer have become a single physical being. (P-Orridge refers to herself in the plural. For clarity, I am using singular feminine pronouns, as Hoptman did.)
But back to the occasion of the chat: Hoptman’s latest New Museum show, “Brion Gysin: Dream Machine,” has just opened, and P-Orridge happens to have been an old friend and admirer of Gysin. The crowd had gathered to hear P-Orridge talk about her late friend and, as the invitation promised, discuss “other matters.” She did not disappoint, providing a freewheeling series of anecdotes about Gysin, her life, and the art scene that once surrounded their mutual friend Williams S. Burroughs in downtown New York.
Here are some of the highlights from the talk:
•At public school in the U.K., a teacher nicknamed “Bob Brush” by the students — “As in toilet brush, for his mustache,” P-Orridge explained — told Porridge, “You obviously live in a completely different cultural universe than me,” and recommended she read Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. That experience led P-Orridge to the books of Burroughs (stolen from porn shops in London), and then Burroughs himself. Eventually, he met Gysin, who was a friend of Burroughs.
•P-Orridge attended a military school, she revealed, listing off to the audience a variety of the weaponry that was usually on hand: mortars, rifles, machine guns, artillery, and so forth. P-Orridge explained that she was trained as a first-class sniper while in school. “They taught me to kill at one mile!” she said, a glimmer in her eye. “Also, we began to start smoking hash at that time.”
•Many rare Gysin films exist today only because of P-Orridge. Burroughs apparently phoned P-Orridge frantically one day, telling him to call Gysin, who explained that a numbers of films kept in storage were going to be thrown in the garbage since the person paying the rent had died. P-Orridge explained that she cashed her welfare check, hopped in a taxi, and picked up the large, 35 mm reels just as workmen were carrying them to a Dumpster.
•“I realized that real lives were a lot more interesting than aesthetics,” P-Orridge said, describing what she learned early in her career by falling into the world of Burroughs and Gysin. Asked by Hoptman to describe pandrogyny, the state that P-Orridge is working to attain, the artist succinctly outlined her beliefs. Humans have transformed their world, she noted, but they have not changed themselves. They must rethink who they are as physical and spiritual things since they are currently out of touch with the world they have created, which has led to the tremendous destruction and violence that occurs today. (I’m describing this with considerably less eloquence than P-Orridge offered.) “We have to destroy all binary systems,” she said.
•Also, we have to colonize space. This would be easier if we could hibernate, like bears, P-Orridge noted. If we were cold-blooded, she continued, we wouldn’t even have to heat spaceships carrying space explorers. And, since there would be no gravity, we could even get rid of our legs. “Once you let go of the human body as a sacred thing, anything is possible,” she said.
•Describing a visit to Hoptman’s Gysin exhibition upstairs, P-Orridge mentioned standing in front of one of the artist’s works, which was blue work and features a psychic cross. “He was going to give that to me, but we couldn’t take it because it was too precious,” she told Hoptman. “We regret that.”
Monday, July 5, 2010
"HIS NAME WAS MASTER"
With the upcoming Dreamachine and Brion Gysin lecture by Gen, it seems an ideal time to post Gen's 1986 Tribute to Brion from ESOTERRORIST (selected essays 1980-1988)
"HIS NAME WAS MASTER"
HIS NAME WAS MASTER
In 1916 Brion Gysin arrived screaming and kicking, suffering forever, he said, from thee adverse effects ov constricted vaginal muscle. Projected through a world that was like Disneyland into a world that became Disneyland, via a port ov entry charged by light. Brion travelled in time and light, and made us all cry easier than loose in our own earthbound domesticity.
E am coumvinced, always will be, that Brion is, was and will be, a Cultural Alchemist.
He could be so negative, stubborn and cantakerous, that screaming suicide off high buildings became more enlightening than his clammed up viscocity ov no-speak. Frustrating all attempts to a direct answer to a direct question, he would benignly draw on his kit, and, eyes twinkling, play magickal Cat and Mouse for literally hours on end. E have never met a more knowledgeable, more capable teacher anywhere, either as myth or saint, or, as in Brion's case, as human. At thee end ov thee day he was thee only man E ever wrote love letters to. To master a long goodnight...
And now, in present time. He's not here. And it hurts. It hurts coumpletely. In thee way that sneaks into us unnanounced, cutting nerves and emotions, crippling our coumplacent daily stance and opening up our pain synapses to snapping point.
In 1975 E wrote to Brion. E was co-editor ov a reference book ov mammoth proportions called "Contemporary Artists", and E was determined that Brion should be rightfully represented in that tome as a radical Artist and Painter. Not dismissed as an eccentric dilletanie as had appeared to have happened in thee deceptual art world. For ten yeras E had, like so many, been tracking down these renegades via deleted Beach Books, often found in Soho porn shops. Exploding with multiple recognitions ov contemporary arcane knowledge that appeared to coumfirm youthful instincts and intuitions, Brion was always thee hardest to find.
He remained that way forever.
He had becoum light.
There was no focus, only reverberating frequencies and pulses, crystals at his centre. He had becoum, quite literally and physically, a Dreamachine that had assumed human form for thee reassurance ov us mere observers. We stare with closed eyes. He flickers bright on our retinas and generates vivid signals. E see all about Brion as Magick and Light. E re-discovered perception through him.
Out to Brion went a list ov questions about his life so far. Back came a cultured exclamation ov surprise with a note, "Even the C.I.A. don't know this much about me". Through correspondence we met in Paris. He would make tea in his tiny kitchen, Morroccan style. Naming thee different bubbles as thee water heated. As thee fish eyes appeared he poured thee water onto thee tea. Exploding its flavour. Thee Alchemists believe that water boils at 101°, he explained. We soon developed a tradition, chocolate biscuits and tea in thee afternoons. A small pasta meal in thee evening, with spirits to accoumpany it. Coffee later on. E would sit. Thee sound ov drumming outside thee Pornpidou centre. Flashes ov Marrakpsh. Sunlight catching thee white flowers on his table, smell ov hash smoke. Swiss Urenmachine in thee corner. Calligraphic paintings on thee easel. Notebooks in rows. Morroccan trinkets reminding me ov his influence ovpr Brian Jones. And he would talk. It was like a children's fairytale. Thee child looking up spellbound and thee Grandfather enrapturing with his amazing tales and anecdotes. Never enough time. Yellow light cutting across thee later shadows and dreams. There is no way to describe how proud E was to meet and know this man.
"the hallucinated have come to tell you that yr utilities are being shut off, dreams monitored, thought directed, sex is shutting down everywhere you are being sent.
all words are taped, agents everywhere, marking
down the live ones to exterminate.
they are turning out the lights.
no they are not evil nor
the devil, but men with a spot of work to do.
this, dear friends, they intend to
do on you you.
you have been offered a choice
between liberty and freedom and NO! you cannot have both"
Brion Gysin
minutes to go
1968
Thee way to write is to simply tell thee truth. The right way is to simply, tell thee truth.
"DEarset Gen There is not much point in telling you just how negative I am feeling these days... daze. I
have not much recovered from my fall on the stairs. After all is said and done, I felt only one thing. . .
...finished. I don't feel any necessity to do all these things but I guess I'll do them if I am still
stuck here and have to do them. I'll do them the best that I can and that may not be much. Don't worry.
Nothing much more to be said than dumb numb no-news."
Love Brion
17 March 1982
And within everything else there is coumthing else. It's a spark. E live forver surrounded by Brion. He paintings on thee walls, his face in snapshots on thee mantelpiece. Thee glow ov Paris light. Caresse calls him "Grandad, my Grandad", and she is right. Thee wise old man ov thee lowlands. When E took Alaura to meet Brion for thee first time E was nervous. He's a bit ov a misogynist E warned. Well, he tries to be, butter E have always found him charming to women nonetheless. Alaura knew nothing about Brion except my love for him. Her love was instant and pure. He coumgratulated us on our impulsive marriage in Tijuana in 1981. Chance had it that two boys from Joujouka were staying with him In Paris that week. Brion made us relaxed. Alaura used thee Dreamachine.
Unprompted by any prior information about what it was, "Heathen Earth" played as she and thee Arab boys stared, ryes closed. E filmed on video. Soon Alaura was swirling through psychedelic patterns and vivid colours. Thee desert scapes, eyes ov Horus, so many archetypal symbols and places. Proof positive that thee Dreamachine actually works, is not triggered by preconceptions. And afterwards, thee most beautiful, priceless and special meal ov my whole life. Cooked and served by tht'e musicians ov Joujouka. As we ate and talked, Brion was full ov energies, thee boys played thee sacred musick ov Pan on pipes in candlelight. E was once more in a fairytale, thee old magician conjouring sensations and rewards.
E have never lost my joy and thanks for such a special gift from Brion. Nothing could have been more literally priceless than that dark, orange, flamelit evening. At thee end ov thee evening, he gave us a painting. Our pagan wedding present, which he inscribed for us. All thee fears and illnesses, all thee betrayals and losses ov his life, his bittrrnesses and fliratations with socialites were nothing. He was thee wisest, kindest man in thee world, and we loved him totally for it.
Brion's work and friendship is a reminder ov work to be done, and a challenge to thee stagnant coumplacency ov thee dreamless minds that would like to drown us. Magick begins ini dreams, dreaming what we would like to happen, programming our subconscious. If you take these dreams seriously enough they DO happen. Dreams are descriptions ov. how things really are. A product ov thee Third Mind, ov perceptual editing and focused will.
Dreams are accurate transmissions.
There should be no separation between work, life, dreams. We must all aim for coumplete integration ov every possible and impossible facet ov our minds, emotions, responses and relationships, and then express that integration through popular culture and expressive arts, through frpndships and events, through light and time.
Brion was a philosophical and alchemical transmitteri receiver. His ideas are frequencies that travel and confront as intimately as Television, butter with thee content ov full knowledge and potency ov shamanic, ritual Magick. No womnder he fell in love with thee Pipes ov Pan and thee sunlight ov thee desert. There should be no separation. Separation would be dishonest, would go against a dream ov evolution through knowledge and psychic development, would go against all our potential.
A book, a film, music, paintings, love, are all thee person who makes and feels them. This is a magickal process and makes things happen. It reveals even more. Thee first time E looked at Brion's drawings they appeared abstract calligraphics. Then he told me they were portrayals ov Arab market places. E could suddenly see they were indeed photographically accurate pictures ov everyday scenes. They simply included thee nature ov reality and time that engages our receptors in a manner we are unused to. Now E always introduce his paintings as figurative works to make this point. Man dreams before he talks, and since our first dreams we have felt that therein are messages. Prophesies, descriptions and events that cannot be ignored. Arcane societies and civilisations in their wisdom, and to their credit, employed people to interpret and record these dreams. Priests would stand on towers and pass their hands before their eyes rapidly creating a flicker effect against thee sun, eventually "tripping out" and speaking ov visions which were coumsidered holy and powerful.
Today, a society and culture with a vested interest in thee suppression ov imagination, self-assurance, creativity, questioning and aspiration, discards dreams and esoteric techiques as trivia. Dreams are merely disturbed nights, or entertainment. Brion saw dreams as a parallel and interconnected universe. A commentary on Man's potential and hopes.
He was in many ways a traditional Artist, yet by thee nature ov his personality he was simultaneously and without self-contradiction thee most radical thinker ov our age in thee area ov Magickal creativity and cross-discipline possibilities. No surprise then, that his greatest political and behavioural achievement was dubbed The 'Dreamachine. A simple machine to decondition and reactivate our perceptions.
Societies controllers try to ensure that dreams are represented as vestigial trappings ov intuition, and are best kept in their place. For Brion and those who revere his work, that way lies death. When you cease to dream, you cease to exist. Shut your eyes. Thee world doesn't die. Open them, and in a sense half ov it does. Dreams generate ideas, liberate behaviour, enhance sexuality, empower Magick, and most ov all create possibilities.
Dangerous stuff.
No wonder Brion was frozen out to thee sideshows ov painting and writing. Too real. Too close to functional and practical techniques. Now, through Brion, we have a Dreamachine. Perhaps a crucial tool for thee arousal ov vision, perception and inner space that has becoum our heritage. Make no mistake, its suppression in subtle ways was no accident. A machine that for thee price ov a lightbulb leads you drugless into thee core ov your being, taps you into thee mass subconscious, stimulates thee mind, and bridges thee abyss between sleep and wakefulness, conscious and unconscious life. Brion recognised that we are at war. Thee fight is between suppression and perception, sexuality and guilt; and between all those things that bolster and assist control, manipulation and darkness, and all those things that encourage freedom, evolution, hope and light.
In thee eleven yeras we were friends, thee question E most asked Brion was, "Tell me about Magick". Thee question he most studiously avoided was thee same. Yet he once graciously gave me a clue. "Do you know your real name?", he said. E did. And then he told me his. It was as E expected.
There was never a superiority or generation gap with Brion. He was always living in now and thee future. In present time. Thinking ov new projects, working with young people, making music, records, painting. Holding 'soirees' for young fans and seekers, always outgoing and moving, always absorbing and thinking. Thee last time we saw him was in Paris in 1986, ten days before he died. Alaura and E sat and held his hand. Being physically alive had becoum a struggle,
"I just never guessed that it would hurt so much", he said. And really there was nothing more to say. It was over.
Brion was sure he was here to go. We are left here to do.
And what we do is described by, defined by, and coumtained within our dreams.
During that last afternoon thee undertaker came to discuss death arrangements with Brion. Alaura and E went walking around Rue St.Martin. We couldn't articulate thee craziness ov life and death. There was nothing to say. Two boys from behind thee iron curtain stopped us, and told us ov their work with electrical sculpture and words. They were influenced by thee work ov Brion, who they'd heard lived in Paris. We drank coffee and took their address. Exiles in America. "He doesn't live in Paris anymore". E said. We felt euphorically disconnected, yet cold. Suppressing out- emotions and terrors because they meant nothing. Had no value against losing Brion. So many people who love him so much. All knowing they will lose him soon.
Frail Images ov his room. Now n hospice. 1 her air itself thee colour ov thee plastic tubes nnd bags ov liquid. Casting a cold bluish tinge through everything. As thee light was going from him, his space was becouming transparent.
Ten days later Alaura came rushing into thee room crying, sobbing uncontrollably.
"Brion's dead", she said.
genesis p-orridge
November 1986
london
"HIS NAME WAS MASTER"
HIS NAME WAS MASTER
In 1916 Brion Gysin arrived screaming and kicking, suffering forever, he said, from thee adverse effects ov constricted vaginal muscle. Projected through a world that was like Disneyland into a world that became Disneyland, via a port ov entry charged by light. Brion travelled in time and light, and made us all cry easier than loose in our own earthbound domesticity.
E am coumvinced, always will be, that Brion is, was and will be, a Cultural Alchemist.
He could be so negative, stubborn and cantakerous, that screaming suicide off high buildings became more enlightening than his clammed up viscocity ov no-speak. Frustrating all attempts to a direct answer to a direct question, he would benignly draw on his kit, and, eyes twinkling, play magickal Cat and Mouse for literally hours on end. E have never met a more knowledgeable, more capable teacher anywhere, either as myth or saint, or, as in Brion's case, as human. At thee end ov thee day he was thee only man E ever wrote love letters to. To master a long goodnight...
And now, in present time. He's not here. And it hurts. It hurts coumpletely. In thee way that sneaks into us unnanounced, cutting nerves and emotions, crippling our coumplacent daily stance and opening up our pain synapses to snapping point.
In 1975 E wrote to Brion. E was co-editor ov a reference book ov mammoth proportions called "Contemporary Artists", and E was determined that Brion should be rightfully represented in that tome as a radical Artist and Painter. Not dismissed as an eccentric dilletanie as had appeared to have happened in thee deceptual art world. For ten yeras E had, like so many, been tracking down these renegades via deleted Beach Books, often found in Soho porn shops. Exploding with multiple recognitions ov contemporary arcane knowledge that appeared to coumfirm youthful instincts and intuitions, Brion was always thee hardest to find.
He remained that way forever.
He had becoum light.
There was no focus, only reverberating frequencies and pulses, crystals at his centre. He had becoum, quite literally and physically, a Dreamachine that had assumed human form for thee reassurance ov us mere observers. We stare with closed eyes. He flickers bright on our retinas and generates vivid signals. E see all about Brion as Magick and Light. E re-discovered perception through him.
Out to Brion went a list ov questions about his life so far. Back came a cultured exclamation ov surprise with a note, "Even the C.I.A. don't know this much about me". Through correspondence we met in Paris. He would make tea in his tiny kitchen, Morroccan style. Naming thee different bubbles as thee water heated. As thee fish eyes appeared he poured thee water onto thee tea. Exploding its flavour. Thee Alchemists believe that water boils at 101°, he explained. We soon developed a tradition, chocolate biscuits and tea in thee afternoons. A small pasta meal in thee evening, with spirits to accoumpany it. Coffee later on. E would sit. Thee sound ov drumming outside thee Pornpidou centre. Flashes ov Marrakpsh. Sunlight catching thee white flowers on his table, smell ov hash smoke. Swiss Urenmachine in thee corner. Calligraphic paintings on thee easel. Notebooks in rows. Morroccan trinkets reminding me ov his influence ovpr Brian Jones. And he would talk. It was like a children's fairytale. Thee child looking up spellbound and thee Grandfather enrapturing with his amazing tales and anecdotes. Never enough time. Yellow light cutting across thee later shadows and dreams. There is no way to describe how proud E was to meet and know this man.
"the hallucinated have come to tell you that yr utilities are being shut off, dreams monitored, thought directed, sex is shutting down everywhere you are being sent.
all words are taped, agents everywhere, marking
down the live ones to exterminate.
they are turning out the lights.
no they are not evil nor
the devil, but men with a spot of work to do.
this, dear friends, they intend to
do on you you.
you have been offered a choice
between liberty and freedom and NO! you cannot have both"
Brion Gysin
minutes to go
1968
Thee way to write is to simply tell thee truth. The right way is to simply, tell thee truth.
"DEarset Gen There is not much point in telling you just how negative I am feeling these days... daze. I
have not much recovered from my fall on the stairs. After all is said and done, I felt only one thing. . .
...finished. I don't feel any necessity to do all these things but I guess I'll do them if I am still
stuck here and have to do them. I'll do them the best that I can and that may not be much. Don't worry.
Nothing much more to be said than dumb numb no-news."
Love Brion
17 March 1982
And within everything else there is coumthing else. It's a spark. E live forver surrounded by Brion. He paintings on thee walls, his face in snapshots on thee mantelpiece. Thee glow ov Paris light. Caresse calls him "Grandad, my Grandad", and she is right. Thee wise old man ov thee lowlands. When E took Alaura to meet Brion for thee first time E was nervous. He's a bit ov a misogynist E warned. Well, he tries to be, butter E have always found him charming to women nonetheless. Alaura knew nothing about Brion except my love for him. Her love was instant and pure. He coumgratulated us on our impulsive marriage in Tijuana in 1981. Chance had it that two boys from Joujouka were staying with him In Paris that week. Brion made us relaxed. Alaura used thee Dreamachine.
Unprompted by any prior information about what it was, "Heathen Earth" played as she and thee Arab boys stared, ryes closed. E filmed on video. Soon Alaura was swirling through psychedelic patterns and vivid colours. Thee desert scapes, eyes ov Horus, so many archetypal symbols and places. Proof positive that thee Dreamachine actually works, is not triggered by preconceptions. And afterwards, thee most beautiful, priceless and special meal ov my whole life. Cooked and served by tht'e musicians ov Joujouka. As we ate and talked, Brion was full ov energies, thee boys played thee sacred musick ov Pan on pipes in candlelight. E was once more in a fairytale, thee old magician conjouring sensations and rewards.
E have never lost my joy and thanks for such a special gift from Brion. Nothing could have been more literally priceless than that dark, orange, flamelit evening. At thee end ov thee evening, he gave us a painting. Our pagan wedding present, which he inscribed for us. All thee fears and illnesses, all thee betrayals and losses ov his life, his bittrrnesses and fliratations with socialites were nothing. He was thee wisest, kindest man in thee world, and we loved him totally for it.
Brion's work and friendship is a reminder ov work to be done, and a challenge to thee stagnant coumplacency ov thee dreamless minds that would like to drown us. Magick begins ini dreams, dreaming what we would like to happen, programming our subconscious. If you take these dreams seriously enough they DO happen. Dreams are descriptions ov. how things really are. A product ov thee Third Mind, ov perceptual editing and focused will.
Dreams are accurate transmissions.
There should be no separation between work, life, dreams. We must all aim for coumplete integration ov every possible and impossible facet ov our minds, emotions, responses and relationships, and then express that integration through popular culture and expressive arts, through frpndships and events, through light and time.
Brion was a philosophical and alchemical transmitteri receiver. His ideas are frequencies that travel and confront as intimately as Television, butter with thee content ov full knowledge and potency ov shamanic, ritual Magick. No womnder he fell in love with thee Pipes ov Pan and thee sunlight ov thee desert. There should be no separation. Separation would be dishonest, would go against a dream ov evolution through knowledge and psychic development, would go against all our potential.
A book, a film, music, paintings, love, are all thee person who makes and feels them. This is a magickal process and makes things happen. It reveals even more. Thee first time E looked at Brion's drawings they appeared abstract calligraphics. Then he told me they were portrayals ov Arab market places. E could suddenly see they were indeed photographically accurate pictures ov everyday scenes. They simply included thee nature ov reality and time that engages our receptors in a manner we are unused to. Now E always introduce his paintings as figurative works to make this point. Man dreams before he talks, and since our first dreams we have felt that therein are messages. Prophesies, descriptions and events that cannot be ignored. Arcane societies and civilisations in their wisdom, and to their credit, employed people to interpret and record these dreams. Priests would stand on towers and pass their hands before their eyes rapidly creating a flicker effect against thee sun, eventually "tripping out" and speaking ov visions which were coumsidered holy and powerful.
Today, a society and culture with a vested interest in thee suppression ov imagination, self-assurance, creativity, questioning and aspiration, discards dreams and esoteric techiques as trivia. Dreams are merely disturbed nights, or entertainment. Brion saw dreams as a parallel and interconnected universe. A commentary on Man's potential and hopes.
He was in many ways a traditional Artist, yet by thee nature ov his personality he was simultaneously and without self-contradiction thee most radical thinker ov our age in thee area ov Magickal creativity and cross-discipline possibilities. No surprise then, that his greatest political and behavioural achievement was dubbed The 'Dreamachine. A simple machine to decondition and reactivate our perceptions.
Societies controllers try to ensure that dreams are represented as vestigial trappings ov intuition, and are best kept in their place. For Brion and those who revere his work, that way lies death. When you cease to dream, you cease to exist. Shut your eyes. Thee world doesn't die. Open them, and in a sense half ov it does. Dreams generate ideas, liberate behaviour, enhance sexuality, empower Magick, and most ov all create possibilities.
Dangerous stuff.
No wonder Brion was frozen out to thee sideshows ov painting and writing. Too real. Too close to functional and practical techniques. Now, through Brion, we have a Dreamachine. Perhaps a crucial tool for thee arousal ov vision, perception and inner space that has becoum our heritage. Make no mistake, its suppression in subtle ways was no accident. A machine that for thee price ov a lightbulb leads you drugless into thee core ov your being, taps you into thee mass subconscious, stimulates thee mind, and bridges thee abyss between sleep and wakefulness, conscious and unconscious life. Brion recognised that we are at war. Thee fight is between suppression and perception, sexuality and guilt; and between all those things that bolster and assist control, manipulation and darkness, and all those things that encourage freedom, evolution, hope and light.
In thee eleven yeras we were friends, thee question E most asked Brion was, "Tell me about Magick". Thee question he most studiously avoided was thee same. Yet he once graciously gave me a clue. "Do you know your real name?", he said. E did. And then he told me his. It was as E expected.
There was never a superiority or generation gap with Brion. He was always living in now and thee future. In present time. Thinking ov new projects, working with young people, making music, records, painting. Holding 'soirees' for young fans and seekers, always outgoing and moving, always absorbing and thinking. Thee last time we saw him was in Paris in 1986, ten days before he died. Alaura and E sat and held his hand. Being physically alive had becoum a struggle,
"I just never guessed that it would hurt so much", he said. And really there was nothing more to say. It was over.
Brion was sure he was here to go. We are left here to do.
And what we do is described by, defined by, and coumtained within our dreams.
During that last afternoon thee undertaker came to discuss death arrangements with Brion. Alaura and E went walking around Rue St.Martin. We couldn't articulate thee craziness ov life and death. There was nothing to say. Two boys from behind thee iron curtain stopped us, and told us ov their work with electrical sculpture and words. They were influenced by thee work ov Brion, who they'd heard lived in Paris. We drank coffee and took their address. Exiles in America. "He doesn't live in Paris anymore". E said. We felt euphorically disconnected, yet cold. Suppressing out- emotions and terrors because they meant nothing. Had no value against losing Brion. So many people who love him so much. All knowing they will lose him soon.
Frail Images ov his room. Now n hospice. 1 her air itself thee colour ov thee plastic tubes nnd bags ov liquid. Casting a cold bluish tinge through everything. As thee light was going from him, his space was becouming transparent.
Ten days later Alaura came rushing into thee room crying, sobbing uncontrollably.
"Brion's dead", she said.
genesis p-orridge
November 1986
london
Upcoming:July 13 and 15th 2010: Brion Gysin and dreamachine lectures...
July 13. 2010 - 8pm Dream Machine, A Celebration with performances by York Factory Complaint and John Zorn & Bill Laswell
July 15 - 7pm Genesis Breyer P-Orridge lecture at New Museum
Genesis Breyer P-Orridge in Conversation about Brion Gysin and Other Matters
The New Museum will present “Brion Gysin: Dream Machine,” the first US retrospective of the work of the painter, performer, poet, and writer Brion Gysin (born 1916, Taplow, UK–died 1986, Paris). Working simultaneously in a variety of mediums, Gysin was an irrepressible inventor, serial collaborator, and subversive spirit whose considerable innovations continue to influence musicians and writers, as well as visual and new media artists today. The exhibition will include over 300 drawings, books, paintings, photo-collages, films, slide projections, and sound works, as well as an original Dreamachine—a kinetic light sculpture that utilizes the flicker effect to induce visions when experienced with closed eyes. “Brion Gysin: Dream Machine” is curated by Laura Hoptman, Kraus Family Senior Curator, and will be on view in the New Museum’s second floor gallery.
“An exhibition of an artist who died more than twenty years ago represents an approach to the notion of the new that is somewhat different from the Museum’s standard—one that emphasizes relevance and fresh information over chronology, and brings to the fore a relatively neglected yet very influential innovator who continues to have a strong impact on artists working today,” said Laura Hoptman.
In 1959, Gysin created the Cut-Up Method, in which words and phrases were literally cut up into pieces and then rearranged to untether them from their received meanings and reveal new ones. His Cut-Up experiments, which he shared with his lifelong friend and collaborator William S. Burroughs, culminated in Burroughs and Gysin’s The Third Mind, a book-length collage manifesto on the Cut-Up Method and its uses. Transferring this notion to experimenting with tape-recorded poems manipulated by a computer algorithm, Gysin created sound poetry and was among the earliest users of the computer in art. At the same creative moment, Gysin conceived of the Dreamachine. During the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s, Gysin would continue his collaborations, and prove to be a mentor for myriad artists, poets, and musicians, from John Giorno to Brian Jones, to David Bowie and Patti Smith, to Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and Keith Haring, among many others.
“Brion Gysin: Dream Machine” will be accompanied by an illustrated catalogue co-published with Hugh Merrell, Ltd., featuring essays by Laura Hoptman; John Geiger, literary scholar and author of the definitive Gysin biography; Gerard Audinet, Chief Curator of the Musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris, which houses Gysin’s artistic estate; James Grauerholz, Gysin’s friend and literary executor; as well as appreciations by contemporary artists, musicians, and poets including George Condo, Paul Elliman, Ugo Rondinone, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Cerith Wyn Evans, Shannon Ebner, Trisha Donnelly, and Sue de Beer.
New Museum
235 Bowery
New York, NY 10002
212.219.1222
Banner image: Bryon Gysin with Dreamachine at Musée des Art Décoratifs, Paris, 1962. © Harold Chapman/Topham/The Image Works
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Lineage...
My Archive of the works of Genesis p-orridge and the ideas and art which I believe ask the most important questions of our exsistence. An archive as well as the Lineage of the ideas of Brion Gysin and William Burroughs which inspired Gen.
Said Genesis...
“How many people would do a book about their own art and devote two pages to a picture of themselves at Brian Jones’s grave? It’s important to confess the influences of your art. Nobody is simply unique.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Of course the sands of Present Time are running out from under our feet. And why not? The Great Conundrum: "
'What are we here for?' is all that ever held us here in the first place. Fear. The answer to the Riddle of the Ages has actually been out in the street since the First Step in Space. Who runs may read but few people run fast enough. What are we here for? Does the great metaphysical nut revolve around that? Well, I'll crack it for you, right now. What are we here for? We are here to go!
~ Brion Gysin The Process ~
We are here to go!....."to space" added William Burroughs
“…It’s about the human species. Will it survive? What is it supposed to be? We are here to go. If we’re here to go how are we gonna do it? If we’re gonna go into space then we have to accept that the human body is malleable and it’s not sacred. It’s not sacred and it’s not finished…”
Continued Genesis p-orridge
"______________ _______________ ______ _____________ _______________...________ __________ ______! ________ _________ _______
My own additions, yet to come ...
Continues Gen..
We are "here to go" as Brion Gysin succintly stated. But not just here to go into inner and outer space, though that process is one part and conceptual parcel of the final aspiration.
We are here to go outside of the physical body. To enter the soild pool of TIME.
That connects us with every moment, in every direction, and every parallel or conflicting omniverse that was, wills to be, or intends to be. Intention is the key and the process is the product.
Said Genesis...
“How many people would do a book about their own art and devote two pages to a picture of themselves at Brian Jones’s grave? It’s important to confess the influences of your art. Nobody is simply unique.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Of course the sands of Present Time are running out from under our feet. And why not? The Great Conundrum: "
'What are we here for?' is all that ever held us here in the first place. Fear. The answer to the Riddle of the Ages has actually been out in the street since the First Step in Space. Who runs may read but few people run fast enough. What are we here for? Does the great metaphysical nut revolve around that? Well, I'll crack it for you, right now. What are we here for? We are here to go!
~ Brion Gysin The Process ~
We are here to go!....."to space" added William Burroughs
“…It’s about the human species. Will it survive? What is it supposed to be? We are here to go. If we’re here to go how are we gonna do it? If we’re gonna go into space then we have to accept that the human body is malleable and it’s not sacred. It’s not sacred and it’s not finished…”
Continued Genesis p-orridge
"______________ _______________ ______ _____________ _______________...________ __________ ______! ________ _________ _______
My own additions, yet to come ...
Continues Gen..
We are "here to go" as Brion Gysin succintly stated. But not just here to go into inner and outer space, though that process is one part and conceptual parcel of the final aspiration.
We are here to go outside of the physical body. To enter the soild pool of TIME.
That connects us with every moment, in every direction, and every parallel or conflicting omniverse that was, wills to be, or intends to be. Intention is the key and the process is the product.
Monday, May 24, 2010
BOOK REVIEW by GENESIS BREYER P-ORRIDGE :“MAD LOVE” - by ANDRE BRETON
BOOK REVIEW by GENESIS BREYER P-ORRIDGE :“MAD LOVE” - by ANDRE BRETON
I recall sitting more than once with Brion Gysin in his Paris apartment discussing so, so extremely earnestly, the implications of his exploration and proseletisation of “Cut-Ups” as a metaphorical direction for the creative arts to follow in the parallel wake of splitting the atom. It seemed then, and continues to seem to me now, that this entire post-war, post-modern era can only begin to make sense, and through that making sense, function as a necessary “circumstantial magick”, in relation to an all pervading awareness
of the incisive cultural fragmentation grenade that “cutting-up” the matter of consensus reality has lobbed into our exterior and interior cultural immune systems.
Gysin knew Breton in the earliest surrealist group times. In fact Breton kicked him out of the very First Surrealist Show of drawings held in Paris in 1935, supposedly for an imaginal decadence and apolitical artistic approach.
I can only assume today, with hindsight, that Brion at some point early on read “MAD LOVE”. He was certainly in proximity to it, and fluent in French, unlike most of us probably on both counts. In fact, he often hinted to me that the radical structural seed, scattered with such abandon by Breton throughout “Mad Love”, could well have been the fecund source of what germinated within Gysin’s fertile first, second, and third minds in a direct line of genetic descent from this text.
Well, here is the other amazingly good news! This book is not the dogmatic surrealist stream of consciousness satirizing romantic love you might expect.
It is actually a deeply sentimental treatment of the chivalrous search for the biggest love possible. A love that explodes with “convulsive beauty” and represents from the depths of “ the human crucible” a preordained
demonstration at its most ecstatic and passionate vibrancy, decanted directly from the joyous melting pot of memory.
Mad Love moves anecdotally between Breton’s passionate search for ideal love; ideal art and ideal chance as a unifying factor and valediction of everything. This is dense and charming, clarifying and inspiring. It is so
refreshing to see romantic love included in the philosophy of revelation through “random chance”.
I always wondered about the artistic lineage of the “Cut-Up” for I felt sure there truly must be an essential missing-link between Gysin’s “Cut-Ups” and Breton’s Surrealist “fortuitous” automatism. Well, here, at long, long last we have it confirmed. “MAD LOVE”, therefore, absolutely insists that it is filed, well-thumbed, on your “Cut-Up” reference bookshelves right next to Brion Gysin’s “THE THIRD MIND”; “LET THE MICE IN” and “HERE TO GO”. These are the foundation stones of any and all credible past, present and future investigations of romantic art, romantic life, and romantic love; which are, you see, quite incontrovertibly and sacredly insisting that they are one and the same quest and process.
Anything built from or for less than total love, total gender and total war on any thing habituated as culture or character by our mindlessly billowing species is simply littering existence with cheap distractions that pointlessly extol built in obsolescence with the sole, paltry function of consuming forever the last traces of nobility and purpose.
As Brion Gysin, Andre Breton and the debacle of contemporary semantics so invitingly invite us to... ”Let’s cut it up, to see what it really says.”
FOREVER!
Genesis P-Orridge
I recall sitting more than once with Brion Gysin in his Paris apartment discussing so, so extremely earnestly, the implications of his exploration and proseletisation of “Cut-Ups” as a metaphorical direction for the creative arts to follow in the parallel wake of splitting the atom. It seemed then, and continues to seem to me now, that this entire post-war, post-modern era can only begin to make sense, and through that making sense, function as a necessary “circumstantial magick”, in relation to an all pervading awareness
of the incisive cultural fragmentation grenade that “cutting-up” the matter of consensus reality has lobbed into our exterior and interior cultural immune systems.
Gysin knew Breton in the earliest surrealist group times. In fact Breton kicked him out of the very First Surrealist Show of drawings held in Paris in 1935, supposedly for an imaginal decadence and apolitical artistic approach.
I can only assume today, with hindsight, that Brion at some point early on read “MAD LOVE”. He was certainly in proximity to it, and fluent in French, unlike most of us probably on both counts. In fact, he often hinted to me that the radical structural seed, scattered with such abandon by Breton throughout “Mad Love”, could well have been the fecund source of what germinated within Gysin’s fertile first, second, and third minds in a direct line of genetic descent from this text.
Well, here is the other amazingly good news! This book is not the dogmatic surrealist stream of consciousness satirizing romantic love you might expect.
It is actually a deeply sentimental treatment of the chivalrous search for the biggest love possible. A love that explodes with “convulsive beauty” and represents from the depths of “ the human crucible” a preordained
demonstration at its most ecstatic and passionate vibrancy, decanted directly from the joyous melting pot of memory.
Mad Love moves anecdotally between Breton’s passionate search for ideal love; ideal art and ideal chance as a unifying factor and valediction of everything. This is dense and charming, clarifying and inspiring. It is so
refreshing to see romantic love included in the philosophy of revelation through “random chance”.
I always wondered about the artistic lineage of the “Cut-Up” for I felt sure there truly must be an essential missing-link between Gysin’s “Cut-Ups” and Breton’s Surrealist “fortuitous” automatism. Well, here, at long, long last we have it confirmed. “MAD LOVE”, therefore, absolutely insists that it is filed, well-thumbed, on your “Cut-Up” reference bookshelves right next to Brion Gysin’s “THE THIRD MIND”; “LET THE MICE IN” and “HERE TO GO”. These are the foundation stones of any and all credible past, present and future investigations of romantic art, romantic life, and romantic love; which are, you see, quite incontrovertibly and sacredly insisting that they are one and the same quest and process.
Anything built from or for less than total love, total gender and total war on any thing habituated as culture or character by our mindlessly billowing species is simply littering existence with cheap distractions that pointlessly extol built in obsolescence with the sole, paltry function of consuming forever the last traces of nobility and purpose.
As Brion Gysin, Andre Breton and the debacle of contemporary semantics so invitingly invite us to... ”Let’s cut it up, to see what it really says.”
FOREVER!
Genesis P-Orridge
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Related: Brion Gysin and Timothy Leary Import vinyl in stock via Cold spring records...
Taken from the Cold spring Newsflash email update- 17th November 2009
We've some truly CULT items in stock now!Act fast as all of these items are RARE and in limited quantities!
BRION GYSIN - 'Poems Of Poems' LP (Alga Marghen) - £45 / £47 / £49
Recorded in 1958 at the Beat Hotel, rue Git le Coeur, Paris, on a UHER 4400 reel-to-reel recording machine, this record documents Brion Gysin's important experiments in cut-up and recording technique. "I made it to show Burroughs how, possibly, to use it. William did not yet have a tape recorder. Very soon after that, Burroughs was busy punching to death a series of cheap Japanese plastic tape recorders, to which he applied himself with such force that he could punch one of them to death inside a matter of weeks, days even." Limited Edition of 630 copies (original 1998 pressing!). Italian import. • All Brion Gysin Titles•
TIMOTHY LEARY - 'You Can Be Anyone This Time Around' LP (Get Back) - £14 / £16 / £18
For a long time a hard to find collectable record, this historical spoken word album by LSD prophet Timothy Leary has now finally been reissued. Leary’s raps and monologues, structured on an intersections of famous tunes of the time (the album was originally released in 1970 on Douglas) might sound outdated today and too linked to a specific weltanschauung that was the basis of Leary’s modern age philosophy. But this is probably the reason why "You Can Be Anyone This Time Around" retains its interest in current times: it’s the original, uncut, uncensored vision of a sharp thinker who has been often easily scorned for his extreme takes on drug use. Musically speaking, side B “Live and Let Live,” offers an unforgettable jam session in the background with Stephen Stills, John Sebastian, Buddy Miles and Jimi Hendrix on bass! Pressed on heavyweight 180g vinyl. • All Timothy Leary Titles•
We've some truly CULT items in stock now!Act fast as all of these items are RARE and in limited quantities!
BRION GYSIN - 'Poems Of Poems' LP (Alga Marghen) - £45 / £47 / £49
Recorded in 1958 at the Beat Hotel, rue Git le Coeur, Paris, on a UHER 4400 reel-to-reel recording machine, this record documents Brion Gysin's important experiments in cut-up and recording technique. "I made it to show Burroughs how, possibly, to use it. William did not yet have a tape recorder. Very soon after that, Burroughs was busy punching to death a series of cheap Japanese plastic tape recorders, to which he applied himself with such force that he could punch one of them to death inside a matter of weeks, days even." Limited Edition of 630 copies (original 1998 pressing!). Italian import. • All Brion Gysin Titles•
also...
TIMOTHY LEARY - 'You Can Be Anyone This Time Around' LP (Get Back) - £14 / £16 / £18
For a long time a hard to find collectable record, this historical spoken word album by LSD prophet Timothy Leary has now finally been reissued. Leary’s raps and monologues, structured on an intersections of famous tunes of the time (the album was originally released in 1970 on Douglas) might sound outdated today and too linked to a specific weltanschauung that was the basis of Leary’s modern age philosophy. But this is probably the reason why "You Can Be Anyone This Time Around" retains its interest in current times: it’s the original, uncut, uncensored vision of a sharp thinker who has been often easily scorned for his extreme takes on drug use. Musically speaking, side B “Live and Let Live,” offers an unforgettable jam session in the background with Stephen Stills, John Sebastian, Buddy Miles and Jimi Hendrix on bass! Pressed on heavyweight 180g vinyl. • All Timothy Leary Titles•
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