Flower Burial is an experimental sound project constructed from a single sample of a voicemail I repeatedly received from 2022 to 2024 from medical debt collectors. The call was in regard to an emergency room visit I had during my time as a student without medical insurance. This artificial human’s speech with a dispassionate yet confrontational voice is the basic building block used to build a harsh monolithic wall of digital noise that periodically breaks down into swaths of ambient soundscapes. The different sections are constructed improvisationally utilizing destructive digital processes, with each distinct section taking a name from one of eight flowers found in Shanidar Cave amongst the fossilized remains of Neanderthals. The presence of these floral samples has sparked a debate on the intellectual capabilities of Neanderthals. They suggest the possibility of a burial ritual that requires a kind of abstract ideation not previously associated with Neanderthals. The floral samples also each hold a medicinal property that suggests a prehistoric medicinal tradition. Whether these flowers represent medicine or mysticism (or a space in between), they hold a primordial prequel to our human plight of dealing with the limitations of the body and mortality. A plight echoed thousands of years later in my relationship with the modern medical system
Cassettes available at Fiadh Productions