Michael Prime ‘Fructification’

01 Insect Wavelengths (13:20)
02 Dissolving Geologic Time (9:24)
03 The Mouth Of Hermes (20:52)

Total time: 43:35
LP released 1989 on Mycophyle Records, UK

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. [from liner notes]

First solo LP by Michael Prime who was then graduating in Ecology and Conservation in London. Co-founder of live electronic group Morphogenesis in 1985 (with Clive Graham, Roger Sutherland, Ron Briefel, Fred Sansom and Andy Courdry), Prime is famous for his development of bio-feedback in experimental music, amplifying plants or fungi, using bat-detectors as sound source, etc. His own music and that of Morphogenesis can be considered the british branch of David Tudor, David Behrman and Gordon Mumma’s live-electronics of the 1970-80s. The first track on this LP is based on voice recordings, the 2nd uses a bat-detector’s output and the last is build from field recordings. All sounds are processed beyond recognition to create a kind of living electronic organism with a life of its own. Witnessing these insect-like sounds constantly evolving is a captivating experience, possibly because the sounds seem to change not merely from composing gestures but through a living-like process. I assume completely disappearing behind the process is one of Michael Prime’s goals and he fully succeeds in these tracks. Ecological music on auto-pilot, sort of.

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