artist: MICHAEL PRIME
title: L-Fields
label: Sonoris
country: France
format: CD
title: L-Fields
label: Sonoris
country: France
format: CD
"Some records will please you, others will disturb or mystify you, and then some rare
specimens will extend your conception of life. Michael Prime's L-fields is of the latter
category. The source material on L-fields consists of bioelectrical recordings of
hallucinogenic plants. Yep. Prime records the fluctuations of the electric guitar field of a
plant, fluctuations that trigger an oscillator. Prime later compresses, overlays, and integrates
sounds from the surrounding environment to the signal and voilà: through a work aesthetically
close to electroacoustics, the listener is invited to hear a plant live its life! L-fields delivers
three experiments of this type (between 16 and 21 minutes each) with three different species:
Cannabis sativa, Amanita muscaria, and Lophophora williamsii. Why all hallucinogenic
plants? Because they had such an influence on the music of the last four decades it is about
time you hear their music. The result is a fascinating organic music, out of this world and yet
at the heart of our world. Composer David Dunn made some in situ environmental recordings
in the 1970s-1980s; he used environments like the Grand Canyon to spatialize his music and
instructed the musicians to interact with manifestations from the ecosystem (like nearby birds,
for instance). But Michael Prime goes beyond this technique: instead of modifying the music
in order to get a reaction from the environment, he modifies the environment (accentuating
ambient light, touching the plant, etc.) to stimulate modifications in the internal "music" of
plants. Simply fascinating. The four-and-a-half-stars rating goes as much to the context of
artistic production at play than to the result itself, since one cannot separate the two when
evaluating this album." (François Couture - All Music Guide)
specimens will extend your conception of life. Michael Prime's L-fields is of the latter
category. The source material on L-fields consists of bioelectrical recordings of
hallucinogenic plants. Yep. Prime records the fluctuations of the electric guitar field of a
plant, fluctuations that trigger an oscillator. Prime later compresses, overlays, and integrates
sounds from the surrounding environment to the signal and voilà: through a work aesthetically
close to electroacoustics, the listener is invited to hear a plant live its life! L-fields delivers
three experiments of this type (between 16 and 21 minutes each) with three different species:
Cannabis sativa, Amanita muscaria, and Lophophora williamsii. Why all hallucinogenic
plants? Because they had such an influence on the music of the last four decades it is about
time you hear their music. The result is a fascinating organic music, out of this world and yet
at the heart of our world. Composer David Dunn made some in situ environmental recordings
in the 1970s-1980s; he used environments like the Grand Canyon to spatialize his music and
instructed the musicians to interact with manifestations from the ecosystem (like nearby birds,
for instance). But Michael Prime goes beyond this technique: instead of modifying the music
in order to get a reaction from the environment, he modifies the environment (accentuating
ambient light, touching the plant, etc.) to stimulate modifications in the internal "music" of
plants. Simply fascinating. The four-and-a-half-stars rating goes as much to the context of
artistic production at play than to the result itself, since one cannot separate the two when
evaluating this album." (François Couture - All Music Guide)