PHACE / Sun

Repetition and mutation are the programme in Bernhard Lang's works. In his compositions, loops and samples repeatedly wander through the ear canal –, distorted and doubled by electronics and effects, deformed and restructured by patches and digital algorithms. The PHACE ensemble dedicates this evening to his work »The Travel Agency is on Fire«, with the powerful vocal support of Sarah Maria Sun, an outstanding vocalist of our time.

Literary basis: Burroughs & the art of the cut-up
»The Travel Agency is on Fire« is based on a selection of »cut-up«-experiments by William S. Burroughs on texts by a number of canonical writers, from William Shakespeare and Arthur Rimbaud to William Wordsworth and James Joyce. Burroughs selected the source texts, cut them up and juxtaposed the fragments to select random word combinations and create new word compositions.

Experimental process
»The Travel Agency is on Fire«, which has only been available in the archives since 2010, fascinates scholars and Burroughs fans alike as it sheds light on the experimental processes underlying Burroughs' work. Musically, the cut-up strategies that Burroughs developed together with Brion Gysin and visualised in the films with Anthony Balch and Ian Sommerville are referenced in various ways: Essential here is Burroughs' maxim »Play it back, Play it back, Play it all back«, which refers to a change in consciousness through the superimposition and doubling of the real with samples and loops.