«on "throat microphone experiments" we have an example of burrough's efforts to record "subvocal speech". a vague voice snarls incomprehensible words, but the tone of hostility and suffering comes through clearly. the vocal bursts and softer mutterings suggest some internal, unedited language, closer to the body and perhaps also to unprocessed raw emotion. burroughs elaborates on these experiments in "the ticket that exploded"(1967): "small microphones were attached to the two sides of [bradly's] body the sounds recorded on two tape recorders - he heard the beating of his heart, the gurgle of shifting secretions and food, the rattle of breath and scratches of throat gristle". with calculated manipulation of "feedback between the two body halves", bradly finally breaks free of body, identity and word. assessing his own experiments with contact microphones more realistically, burroughs admits, "all we got were some interesting sounds".»

txt source: robin lydenberg - sound identity fading out (p423). in:wireless imagination, Ed. kahn/whitehead, MIT press, 1992.

related:
william burroughs - break through in grey room (sub rosa sr08)
william burroughs - nothing here now but the recordings (industrial records IR0016)

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