Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs is one of the most prophetic, fucked up books to ever exist. It’s a collection of narratives that string together a fetishistic fascination with degradation, sexual depravity and medical experiments. Now, the 1959 novel is getting a new lease of life, as old recordings by Burroughs have been put to music for a spoken word album.

20 years ago, leading up to his death, the Beat generation renegade began recording the more shocking parts of the novel. “The project got buried and put out of print very quickly,” said producer Hal Willner, a friend of the author’s who also worked on the audiobook.  Let Me Hang You will comprise of the original audio, alongside music by Bill Frisell, pianist Wayne Horvitz and violist Eyvind Kang for what’s being called a “psychedelic spoken word”. It will be released on soul musician King Khan’s label this July, according to the New York Times.

Burrough’s “unspeakable portions” of the novel will be split up into 13 full tracks. Willner said the excerpts were what “we found very funny in an outrageous way”. “Some see him as this true avant-gardist and not at all a comedian,” he observed. “But it’s accessible as well as being avant-garde and sophisticated.”

Willner revisited the recordings when he discovered them “abandoned and collecting dust on a musty shelf as forgotten as a piece of rancid ectoplasm on a peep show floor”. He knew of Khan through a mutual relationship with Lou Reed, and asked him to help finish the project.

“The writing in Naked Lunch is really heavy and perverse at a time when society needs to be reminded that you can explore these nether regions of life and bring back something really beautiful,” Mr. Khan said.