Glen Hall - Hallucinations (1999)

Tracklist

01. Alamout
02. Hallucinations
03. Cut-Up
04. Grey Fingers
05. Splintered Carnival
06. Photo Falling, Word Falling
07. El Hombre Invisible
08. The Book of the Dead
09. The Blue Desert of Silence
10. A Few Questions for CONTROL
11. The Ant Hill
12. Uranian Willy (He Wised Up the Marks)
13. Wild Boys
14. Virus Powers (The Book of the Word)

In 1973, while studying modern Amercian literature, I was asked to produce “a response” to any novel I had been reading. I chose to do a tape collage about “The Market”, a section of William Burroughs’ “Naked Lunch”. That same year, I finished my post-graduate work with my thesis on Burroughs’ cut-up and fold-in techniques of composition. Later, when studying composition, I produced a multimedia piece based on a chapter of ‘”The Wild Boys”.

Twenty years later, while recording with a group I was asked to assemble, Strange Attractors, I used several scenes from Burroughs’ “Nova Express” and “The Wild Boys” to spark spontaneous compositions. I tried unsuccessfully to do a multimedia project with Burroughs himself among others, but the effort, the mistakes and the contacts made during the attempt eventually bore fruit. I had asked trombonist Roswell Rudd if he would participate in the first project. When that didn’t materialize, I persisted and wound up conceiving “Hallucinations”-a multimedia work involving recording rehearsals/performances attended by audiences invited to watch “the process” of creating the work itself.

Film, video, electronic sound projection, spoken word, visual art (statues, found objects) and a ten-piece ensemble with three guitarists, two bassists, two drummers, a percussionist, a vibist, a trombonist and me were all incorporated into a visual/aural work, judging by the audience’s reaction, had quite an impact. The recording, done five months before the novelist’s death, is a good representation of what we did over three days, and serves as an alternative “port of entry” into the hallucinatory world of William S. Burroughs.

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