There are reissues, and then there’s this. Infrequent Seams has unveiled ’The Travel Agency is on Fire,’ a monumental 4xCD boxset that resurrects previously unpublished William S. Burroughs cut-up texts and hands them to Thurston Moore and Anne Waldman to read aloud — all wrapped in sonic architecture built by bassist/composer James Ilgenfritz and a dizzying cast of collaborators.
The credits read like a who’s-who of the underground: Brian Chase (Yeah Yeah Yeahs), Zeena Parkins, Elliott Sharp, JG Thirlwell (Foetus), Daniel Carter — dozens deep across four discs of readings, collage work, and free improvisation. The set drops September 25, 2026, and the first single, Vampire Lips, is out now.
The Story Behind It
This marks the first-ever meeting of Ilgenfritz, Waldman, and Moore, joined by nearly two dozen contributing artists, with Burroughs’ cut-up texts as the connective tissue running through it all. It’s Ilgenfritz’s second major work built around Burroughs, and the first release to grow out of his collaboration with Burroughs scholar Alex Wermer-Colan, who unearthed this cache of unpublished material — first surfaced by Lost & Found: The CUNY Poetics Document Initiative back in 2015.
Using the cut-up method he pioneered with Brion Gysin, Burroughs spliced together texts by writers ranging from J.D. Salinger to William Shakespeare, along with his own contemporaries Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac.
Every hand-assembled boxset comes with a hand-painted box, decorative slipcover, and a 12-page booklet. Disc 1 layers Waldman and Moore’s readings over Ilgenfritz’s sonic cut-ups of the Anagram Ensemble (Chase, Parkins, Carter, Elliott Sharp, William Winant, and more). Disc 2 keeps the same readings but gives each track’s atmosphere to a different collaborator — JG Thirlwell, Bob Bellerue, Sarah Belle Reid, among others. Discs 3 and 4 turn the mic over entirely to the Anagram Ensemble for pure instrumental improvisation.
The album is dedicated to the memory of James Grauerholz.
Credits
Anne Waldman — spoken word
Thurston Moore — spoken word, guitar
James Ilgenfritz — producer, composer, contrabass, electronic processing
Alex Wermer-Colan — dramaturg, liner notes
Featuring: Daniel Carter, Brian Chase, AC Diamond, David First, Michael Foster, Pauline Kim Harris, Kerosene Jones, Robbie Lee, M Lamar, Ras Moshe, Zeena Parkins, Elliott Sharp, William Winant, Devin Brahja Waldman, Jiryis Ballan, Bob Bellerue, Chuck Bettis, Dustin Krcatovich, Teerath Majumder, Sarah Belle Reid, Jonah Rosenberg, JG Thirlwell, and Mark Trecka.
Recorded by Marc Urselli (Eastside Sound, Nov 24, 2019) and Jason LaFarge (Seizure’s Palace, Sept 2019 and Jan 2025). Mastered by Jonah Rosenberg. Graphic design by Dustin Krcatovich.
Listen / Pre-Order
Stream and pre-order ‘The Travel Agency is on Fire’ on Bandcamp
‘The Travel Agency is on Fire’ is out September 25, 2026 via Infrequent Seams.
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