"Roaratorio is one of Cage's most attractive larger assemblages...the piece is a landmark in the composer's later output, and a credit to all involved in its elaborate realization." - Peter Dickinson, Gramophone, 1994
Roaratorio was a commission from the West German Radio and IRCAM for Cage to realize a work based on his favorite book, Finnegans Wake by James Joyce. Cage began by making a text from the original (which became Writing for the Second Time Through Finnegans Wake, also issued here in its entirety), and cataloging the many sounds and locations mentioned in the book. A recording of each sound was made at the noted locations - virtually every sound/location was recorded. These were then laid out in the sequence in which they are mentioned in the Wake and mixed, along with Cage's rendering of the text, into a massive collage of 62 tracks of tape lasting about an hour. Added to this is live accompaniment from leading Irish musicians on traditional instruments, performing traditional Irish music. The result is an enthralling stew of words, sound and music unlike anything you've encountered before.
Because Cage's beautiful reading of the text often gets submerged in the density of Roaratorio, the unadorned recording of Writing for the Second Time... is also included. Special insight on the works can be had from Laughtears, with Cage interviewed by Klaus Schöning of the WDR regarding the project.

Sounds of New Music is a collection of 18 compositions from the 1920s to the mid-1950s representing attempts at a "new means of musical expression." Some use familiar instruments in new ways, while others experiment with new instruments; the formats of the compositions range from structured musical scores written for orchestra to electronically altered music using tape-recording devices. Composers include Edgard Varèse, Henry Cowell, and John Cage, whose "Dance" is played on a transformed Steinway piano that gives the music an almost primitive quality. Liner notes describing the new music feature a substantial article on Concrete Music.