The entire basis for this piece resulted from an article in the New York
Times from the Tuesday September 11, 1979 edition. There is no real social
relevance here, merely a representation of an article and its aural symbolism.
Throughout the entire piece, the worm's synapse sound can be heard; scientists
are now convinced that this sound is caused by envelope generators controlling
white noise with an analog delay and a sequential voltage controlled panning
device. When a worm's cerebral ganglion (wormlike brain) is functioning it
emits sounds much like a farting bus. Throughout the entire second half of
the piece, the worm rhythm section is present. The rhythm section is essential
to the worm's basic survival. The enkephalins and beta endorphins which are
secreted by the invertabrate causes a herd of worms to form the "south american
worm rhythm section", which works the creatures into a frenzy; whereuponithe
worms begin to have a wild orgy among the rocks till satiated. In the beginning
of the piece we have the "worm dig section", which is showing the worm's painful
ascent into man's environment. The final instrumental section is a delicate
weaving of sounds of pain and pleasure, which mix together until at moments
they are indistinguishable. The vocal section is done by myself and Beth Mastin-Kiefaber.
Here we have the text of the article being read in Swedish supplemented by
my utterances of pain and pleasure. This type of babbling is symbolic of the
information overload which is currently occuring at an alarming rate all over
the world. By doing the text in swedish I am working with the actual sounds
of the words, since the real meaning of the words is pure scientific information
overload. One final note: animals lacking backbones are very prevelant in
both man's and the worm's worlds. The human variations emit sounds which are
not unlike a whining dog. I would also like to thank Beth for her help on
translation and of course special thank to Boris
and Frank Gearhead who locked themselves in U.W.E.M.C. in order to help
me finish this piece.
Worm Digest - all you ever wanted
to know about worms
Worms
Can Feel Pain (4'20") 