Michael Prime - Fructification

In Insect Wavelengths, there are successive transformations of sound material derived entirely from a recording of my own voice. The technology that has enabled human beings to extend our perceptions to previously hidden realms has also led to the discovery that other creatures have always possessed some of these abilities. Many species of insect are able to transmit and receive signals in the infra-red spectrum, tuning into specific signals much as we tune a radio. This is why the antennae of certain moths so closely resemble log-periodic television aerials. What we perceive as warmth radiating from a living organism or from the cooling earth at night, insects may perceive as bands of colour unknown to us. It may be that the human retina does possess some vestigial infra-red receptors, which can become sensitized under certain conditions.

Dissolving Geologic Time originated with a faulty bat-detector, a machine which translates the ultrasonic cries of bats to the range of human hearing. When the output was turned up too high, the machine generated its own internal feedback. These are the sounds which, in partially modified form, open the piece.

The Mouth of Hermes incorporates field recordings I made in locations such as Wookey Hole caves in Somerset and the Riverdale shopping centre in Lewisham, together with fragments of music from many parts of the world. It was inspired by that supreme example of organism modifying technology, the interaction between the earth's magnetic layers and short-wave radio signals. There, human communications are processed through the cyclical contractions of the living planet itself in an organic multiplication of possibilities.

The tracks on side A were recorded in 1988-9, the track B in 1987-9.