kapotte muziek - curing without killing

this is the final installemet of a project started in 1987. a newspaper article said that recent research learned that during an operation a patient is not completely unconscious. during the period that a patient is 'slamed' the body is inactive and so are large parts of the brain. one of the organs which remains active during that period are the acoustic organs. unconscious patients are able to hear sounds from, for instance, the operating theatre. when they have woken up they cannot remember what exactley they heard. additional tests proved they did not remember, even under a state of hypnosis. but then at certain moments they start remembering certain phrases without knowing where they came from. usually these phrases have something to do with the operation they underwent, but they do not know that and think it may have been picked up from the television or such like. other tests showed the following: in three groups of patients that wore headphones, one set being played the phrase'everything is allright, you will be better soon' repeatedly, the second group receiving sounds from the operating theatre and the third group were played pink noise. after the operations all three groups had equal pain but group one who were played the soothing voice were able to leave the hospital sooner than the other groups. so aneathetists should be careful with what they are saying during an operation. from so called tribal societies we know they use music and voices to give a little help with healing processes.

combining these two gives us the oppertunity to make a form of sound which is able to help the healing process during an operation. the big advantage of this compared to spoken texts, is that spoken texts can be remembered and sounds and frequencies are not remembered because they do not exist in the daily life of patients.

a series of works were released based on the original idea, using heart simulation sounds, provided by cefas von rossem. these were:

'anathesia' a cassette released by sounform in 1988

'korperlaute' a 7" released by korm plastics in 1990

'lauter' a cassette released by harsh dept. in in 1992, re-released as a cd-r by absurd in 1999

'korpermuziek' a cassette in a private edition of 1, no label

'kaifas' and 'rotsen' two tracks on 'the passing of gods' cd compilation, released by play loud in 1992

'cardioupdate' a cd-r released by bake records in 1999 (in a private edition of 2 copies)

this recording also marks the end of kapotte muziek as a studio project. kapotte muziek has existed since 1984 with an ongoing principle of 'sound recycling' (of which this project is just another example). "no work is ever finished", but after nineteen years and new technology arriving it is time to put kapotte muziek to sleep. the usual live duo/trio version of kapotte muziek will continue to play concerts.

this recording is, as usual, dedicated to cefas van rossem, for his ongoing interest in this particular area. it is also dedicated to andrew m. mckenzie, who inspired the original interest in the medical use of sound. title is borrowed from robert spridgeon.