WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS - NOTHING HERE NOW BUT THE RECORDINGS @ 40

 

Released in May of 1981 by Throbbing Gristle’s Industrial Records label, William S. Burroughs’ Nothing Here Now but the Recordings is celebrating its 40th anniversary this month. Its release was the first time any of his audio tape experiments were ever made available to the public. Its origin was the result of years of friendship and encouragement to share this material with the world.

Sometime around 1973, Genesis P-Orridge was browsing the classified ads in the underground art magazine, FILE, and happened upon an ad from William S. Burroughs requesting images of “camouflage for 1984” with a London address for correspondence. Genesis had been a fan of Burroughs for some time and couldn’t believer he’d actually publish his real address, so he took the chance to write a tersely worded prank letter to him and duly received a response with an invitation to come down to London and visit him sometime. The invitation was accepted and Genesis made the trip from Hull to London and began a friendship with Burroughs that would last until the senior author’s death.

During their frequent conversations, Gen became acquainted with the “cut-up” technique pioneered by Burroughs’ close friend, Brion Gysin. Burroughs often mentioned the tape experiments he’d done using the process, but P-Orridge never got a chance to hear any of the actual recordings. This wasn’t for lack of interest as Gen repeatedly asked if he could hear them and it took seven years of nagging before Burroughs finally relented and allowed Gen to have at these neglected gems. Burroughs handed over boxes of old cassettes and reel-to-reel tapes, unmarked and unorganized, with the instruction that Gen should catalogue them all.

Gen and Peter Christopherson then spent months slogging through these tapes, diligently typing out logs for every snippet and segment, from Moroccan music to Bill talking to TV sounds, all messed with via editing, stop/start recording or manually spooling tape on the recorder to modulate the speed. They worked hour after hour, all the while carefully noting various bits and pieces that had some sense of significance or resonance or which offered particularly effective examples of the cut-up or other processing technique being explored. Eventually these were paired down to enough to fill a full length LP, transferred to mastering tape and a finished record was cut. The sleeve was created by Christopherson, who was very familiar with LP cover design thanks to his involvement with the Hipgnosis design house.

At the time of its release, Burroughs was rather a forgotten figure in the underground. Most of his books were well out of print and only a few people like P-Orridge cared much about what he’d done. While this album wasn’t a massive seller, it certainly was key in igniting the modern interest in Burroughs’ works and also helped give “Uncle Bill” a proper entry into the world of being a recording artist. There had been a couple of records of him doing the odd reading over the years, but the exposure from the Industrial release coincided with the advent of sampling technology, something which would make Burroughs a popular source for numerous recording artists. As the 1980s progressed, people like Adrian Sherwood and Bill Laswell would incorporate Bill’s distinctive voice into numerous recording projects. It wasn’t uncommon for club goers in the hipper haunts to find themselves busting a move while some Burroughs quote seeped in under the beat. His dystopian perversions made perfect embellishments to the doom disco of the day. All of that started with Nothing Here Now but the Recordings. It was the flashpoint for a career revival which would make him an essential component of the counterculture of the past 40 years.