in 1994 HMV Canada created a national music competition. The "HMV Fresh Blood Grand Prize" was awarded to this recording. I submitted it at the last moment on a cassette entitled "sunlight rain". Packaging, promotion, and distribution across HMV Canada was part of the prize. It was a beautiful moment for me, and a surprising one...as much of the music is textural, free without rules....I was honoured that the judges would allow the envelope to be pushed that far. I settled on the title "Music For Plants, Animals and Humans" for a few reasons. There was a beautiful Iguana in my friend's apartment that would rush to the speakers and settle there whenever these early mixes were played...so I remembered that. Then I realized that much of this music is inspired by natural plant life and jungles and vibrations beyond human form preferences. And finally I realized that we as humans must care for the plants and animals on earth, or we perish. Hence the sequence in the title. 1) unlandscape 3:11 tamboura, violin, mbira dedicated to Chin-Shek Lam, my friend and mentor, whose life and art were his masterpieces. He would often call his Taoist colorfields "unlandscapes" 2) separate path 2:30 bass, voice when alone with my bass, this is my musical path- I love abstraction and organic change 3) wild carrots 4:11 cello multitrack wild, tasty and full of life...what might they sound like? 4) sweetgrass 1:59 piano, voice a blend of classical upright piano and primal vocals 5) purified relations 7:58 dilruba a prayer song to invoke healing between human beings 6) compassion blues 3:49 voice, cello originally written for the M-do dance company's production ' 9 Women' to convey the emotion of compassion-sadness 7) in the moment 3:00 voice, piano freeform composition--I dedicate this piece to Fred Stone and the path of creative music 8) sunlight rain 15:45 sitar, voice my search for the atmosphere of purification and clarity, as in the sunlit rain shower. In the middle of this piece is a musical quotation from the repertoire of Pandit Chandrakant Kapileshwari. to whom I owe much gratitude for starting my path towards Indian Classical Music and the east/west experimental streams of sound cellular music divide and grow death and life happening simultaneously plants, animals and humans have cells and I think sound affects their growth I try to maintain a sense of fluidity with not too many hard edges soft edges with porous membranes that breathe not overly fixed by any rule system meaning each piece bends to it's own rules a sense of nature's play or nature's way is my goal to emulate the way of nature in music and silence All Compositions and performance by George Koller c Socan 94 Small Wood Big Fire publishing recorded at the gas station studios 1993 by Don Kerr mastered at number 9 studios by Nick Blagona design/art direction: Stephen Jurisic cover photo: Peter Oki makeup artist: Julia Valente ZSAN records 1001 (zenith of science, art and nature)