John Cage

John Cage's empty words is something of an epic in reverse: a diminutive vocal exercise divided into four distinct parts that gradually breaks down the writings on sound from Henry David Thoreau's Journal into pure vocalise. Disarticulated, distended and utterly transformed, Cage's recitation utterly abandons all connection to linguistic meaning and becomes pure aesthetic glossolalia. The nearly three hour performance documents Cage reading from the third part of empty words at Teatro Lirico in Milano during 1977 before an increasingly restless crowd of Italian students as it erupts into one of the great, if unnoticed, art riots of the last century. This fully re-mastered double disc set is packaged in a deluxe outer slipcase and features new liner notes by Phantasmic Radio author Allen S. Weiss, a collection of writings and drawings by Cage himself and lots of previously unpublished photographs of the event.