MUZAK: A CONCEPT IN HUMAN ENGINEERING 
by Genesis P. Orridge

Frequency and Pulsation are beginning to appear to be one of thee most 
crucial metabolic stabilisers as medical and biochemical knowledge increases. 
Thee Black Box which cures drug addiction without withdrawal symptoms in 
10 days relies on frequency and pulsation. Small electrodes are attached 
above thee Mastoid nerve centres behind thee ears. A tiny electrical charge 
passes through thee brain sub-liminally releasing Endorphine, thee body's 
own natural "heroin/morphine", which drenches thee body, keeping it high. 
Thee "JUNK" drug is redundant, passes from thee body. Thee Endorphine 
prevents any withdrawal symptoms as it regulates thee metabolism and 
hormones. Once thee junk has gone, thee natural Endorphine goes too, not 
creating any withdrawel, bar slight sickness for a couple of days, an 
occasional, mild headache. So, you switch from INTRODUCED unnatural junk, 
to internally produced natural junk, this latter being no problem to the body 
at all. The Doctor who discovered this travelled through Tibet, thee Far East. 
Thee Black Box can be tuned to other Frequencies and Pulses to cure other 
illnesses and metabolic imbalances, e.g. Migraine, Periods, Asthma.

In Tibet, Singing Bowls, Singing Bells, Thigh Bone Trumpets, Drums are used 
in, to westerners, non-logical combinations to cure Migraines, Mental Illness, 
and other metabolic imbalances. Thee language used is different. Thee heads 
of Demons are split asunder, Demons are exorcised from those possessed 
(could describe a junky in cold-turkey).

In other ethnic cultures, trance states, visionary states are achieved by 
Rhythms and Frequencies. In New Guinea large Sacred Flutes vibrate thee air 
against itself causing mental revelatory states and precognition. In Morocco, 
thee Joujouka players use high Frequency pipes and drums to reach ecstatic 
states and conjour up Pan and effect Magick. In thee Mayan civilisation, 
there were strange unexplained "oil-lamps" which for a long time were 
merely trinkets in Museums, misunderstood objects. Then one day a young 
archaeologist happened to idly blow through one, hit a pure, very high 
pulsating note that sent him on a "trip". Throughout thee world, in all 
cultures therefore, primitive and technological, man has instinctively known 
that Frequency and Pulse coumbined had amazing effects on mind and body. 
Until recently, there was no language to adequately describe this 
interrelationship, and even now, Research is only slowly collating precise 
data on which frequency/pulse does what. Everyone has observed Tribal 
warriors whipping themselves into a trance for war, to feel no pain (that is 
of course Endorphine) or for "Magick", to have visions, see Demons, etc. (that 
is its visionary, hallucinogenic capacity). Yet two and two were never fully 
put together. A Bill Haley concert would end in frenzied vandalism, Bill Haley 
thinking it was because his music was so fantastically good and exciting AS 
MUSIC. In fact it was a coumbination of mass hysteria, as in Tribal dancing, 
and an actual drug-induced, metabolic explosion, totally unconscious and 
uncontrolled, triggered by thee inherent rhythms and Frequencies of sound. 
Because he was unaware of thee triggers he was dabbling with, thee very 
results were unpredictable, coumfused and uncontrolled. Funny enough, 
those Right-Wing journalists who condemned this "jungle music" were far 
closer to thee truth than their tiny minds could ever have envisaged. So 
music does PHYSICALLY reconstruct, ENGINEER, thee brain, its hormones, 
thee body, its hormones; its entire metabolic regulator system is tuned.

There is a great deal of pressure upon thee inventors of thee Black Box to 
cease their research; or hand it over to thee Governments of USA and Britain. 
There is incredible pressure from thee huge drug corporations to prevent its 
widespread publicity and application too. Obviously they have a vested 
interest in making millions from drug-dependent human beings whilst 
simultaneously suppressing their visionary capabilities. Thee old story 
Burroughs got so right. This also explains thee kidnap of Rock music in thee 
Sixties by thee Governments and Media, aided by corporations and 
coumglomerates to defuse its radical abilities to restate thee tribal 
unification and ecstasy of primitive ritual music. Drugs suppress, commercial 
"easy listening" music suppresses, they quite literally addict and destroy 
thee potency of each metabolism they affect. It is a war, no two ways about 
it, and only now do we have thee information and technology needed to fight 
our own guerilla war back. One has to begin to construct one's music to 
short-circuit thee implants we've been conditioned into with commercial 
music. One has to avoid and reject thee drugs of control we've been 
conditioned to rely on in moments of defeat and self-hate. We need to 
discover and research, as scientifically as possible, methods to reach drug 
states that are useful without thee use of drugs. Sound, Frequency, 
Dreamachines are thee keys to that. Boy guerilla in a police station, 
questioned, under threat, no worries about blackmail through needing a fix, 
no cold turkey. He can use trained voice pitch to flip out his custodians, send 
them blind, make them vomit and walk out a free man stamping his feet in 
coded rhythm of control paranoia. Information suppressed by authorities 
and monopolised by big business is usually dangerous to their supremacy 
and useful to us, making them both impotent and redundant. When power is 
dispensable it is no longer power, it is pathetic posturing.

Burroughs and Gysin chanced upon cut-ups, they had thee vision to see thee 
IMPLICATIONS. And discovering thee code of true implications is thee mark 
of real genius, really radical thought. Gysin hallucinated constructively whilst 
travelling on a bus through France. Thee sunlight flickering through 
regularly spaced trees on his closed eyelids pulsing at slightly different 
phased intervals being thee key, coumbined with a particular frequency. He 
understood thee IMPLICATIONS, and with Ian Sommerville built thee 
DREAMACHINE, probably thee most important and thee most neglected anti-
control, anti-drug device ever invented by mankind. Permanent visions and 
perceptual revelations for an occasionally replenished light-bulb. With T.G. 
we openly declared our primary interest was METABOLIC music, and thee 
application of cut-up techniques with tape and sound to non-entertainment 
motivated music directed at deconditioning social restraints on thought and 
body. In PSYCHIC TV we intend to apply our research and new information 
to building an even more precise and useful Individual structure that 
consciously takes into account thee real effects of Frequency and Pulse 
butter propagandises them in a very deceptive and subliminal way. A 
distorted mirror reflecting muzak back on itself. An innocuous parody of 
style, tactic and structure that in fact contains, in code, thee seeds of its own 
destruction, and hopefully, thee structure that nurtures it. To appear 
deflowered yet to be totally potent.
REFERENCES 
Thee language used in mysticism, quite rightly has been debunked. It has 
becoum a crutch of not-understanding that allows dogma to flourish. Our 
enemy must always use dogma. To ask "WHY?", to "NEVER ACCEPT" are 
crucial. Thee most crucial and stimulating of human capacities. However, one 
can recognize an intuitive grasp of thee real function of sound when, for 
example, Paramhansa Yogananda says: "I understand the explosive vibratory 
power in human speech could be wisely directed to free one's life from 
difficulties and thus operate without scar or rebuke."

"Any word spoken with clear realization and deep concentration has a 
materialising value. Loud or silent repetition of words has been found 
effective in psychotherapy. The secret lies in the stepping-up of the mind's 
vibratory rate."

PTV suggested that musick is like teeth. You keep probing around until you 
find holes and then you fill them in until you have a coumplete set. 
Industrial Music was a term coined by Monte Cazazza for our early research. 
We openly declared we should eventually like to invent an anti-muzak that, 
instead of cushioning thee sounds of a factory environment, made use of 
those very sounds to create rhythmic patterns and structures that 
incorporated thee liberating effects of music by unexpected means. This 
approach is diametrically opposed to thee position of official MUZAK, as 
supplied by thee MUZAK CORPORATION of AMERICA. Their intention is to 
disguise stress, to control and direct human activity to generate maximum 
productivity and minimum discontent in order to give large corporations and 
industrial coumplexes thee highest possible profit with thee least 
responsibility. At this point E quote direct from a book published by thee 
MUZAK CORPORATION for its employees only and which E was able to read 
sections of by nefarious means:

Upon entering thee Headquarters of Muzak Corp., there is a marble tablet set 
into thee wall which reads 'MUZAK-A CONCEPT IN HUMAN ENGINEERING.' 
"One problem we face today is noise. We are going to have to protect people 
against noise pollution." Dr. Bill Wokoun-Director of Human Engineering. 
"Even banks have a noise problem, a sonic overload of chairs 
scraping/coughing/machines/high heels on vinyl/talking. It is becoming 
very evident that you have got to protect people who are working. They will 
have to wear ear-plugs or ear-muffs. But people don't LIKE to do this 
because it makes them feel violated. So we're experimenting with a way of 
making it more COMFORTABLE to wear headsets (be violated! - Ed.) by 
piping in muzak." Dr. B. Wokoun. Muzak is a PROGRAMMED ENVIRONMENT. 
The raw material of muzak is music. Muzak serves 43 of the top 50 largest 
Industrial companies. In ice-bound radar stations, muzak stimulates the men 
who man the DEW-Line, the Distant Early Warning Cordon, to warn of 
nuclear attack. Over 80 million people a day hear muzak. Muzak isn't music 
to LISTEN to, it is music to HEAR. Muzak is functional music. There are three 
main Muzak programmes, for Heavy Industry, Light Industry and the Basic, 
or Office programme. In each of these 15 minutes of music, or "sound-
inmotion" as we call it, is followed by 15 minutes of silence. "The ironical 
thing is, we have no trouble in TOTALITARIAN countries. Mood control and 
crowd control is part of the work of the HUMAN FACTORS DIVISION.

"The IRREDUCIBLE MINORITY are people who don't want or like muzak. A 
muzak transmission studio is a dream of 1984 automation." (From the Muzak 
Corp. Bulletin G.B.) "If muzak makes people happy and contented in their 
environment, like air-conditioning and a colour scheme, how can it NOT be 
good?"

"MUZAK - SPECIALISTS IN THE PHYSIOLOGICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL 
EFFECTS AND APPLICATIONS OF MUSIC."

Muzak is based on the theory of the ASCENDING CURVE.

The initial observation was that production is inclined to slump in mid-
morning and afternoon. Wyatt and Langon established 4 work-curves from 
utter fatigue to a subtler decline that occurs when the work is distasteful 
and the operative is severely bored. Dan O'Neill decided this monotony and 
its effects would be relieved by FUNCTIONAL MUSIC, i.e., boring work is 
made less boring by boring music (Muzak quote).

Some titles of Muzak Corp. Reports and Research documents:

Effects of Muzak on Industrial Efficiency.
Effects of Muzak on Office Personnel.
Application of Functional Music to Worker Efficiency.

The "Hawthorne Effect" is "A change in employee productivity caused by an 
awareness that reactions to environmental changes are being observed."

Research findings on the physiological and psychological effects of music and 
muzak:

It increases the metabolism. Speeds up breathing, typing, writing, driving. 
Increases (or sometimes decreases) muscular energy. Reduces suggestability, 
(not proven at all, recent use of coded messages in muzak to prevent theft in 
supermarkets suggest the opposite and that Muzak Corp are lying) delays 
fatigue, facilitates attention, and produces marked, if rather variable effects 
on blood pressure and pulse.

My note: People often put on records whilst trying to seduce someone for 
sex, this is an unconscious use of muzak effects and admission of thee 
physical controls of music. Addiction to playing music is a commonplace 
example of instintive use of functional music.

By 1956 Dan O'Neill finally achieved workable "Muzak Programming and 
Stimulus Charts". Patterns with upwards scoops of sonic stimulus which 
exactly compensate for those dark quarter-hours when employee's residual 
energy is lowest. Music should embody a constant progression of 
BRIGHTNESS. This is done by analysing the separate segments into:

Tempo, Rhythm, Instrumentation, and Tonal Mass.

The reason you always get 15 minutes of muzak followed by 15 minutes of 
silence is because the maximum you should play in any working area is 1/2 
the time the employee is there. That way the employee is unaware of being 
physically and mentally manipulated.

Two big variables in music are Melody and Rhythm. Muzak are now 
hypothesising from observations made of hospital patients that htese may be 
related to the electrical activity of the nervous system. So that rhythmic 
music may stimulate the sympathetic system and melodic music may 
stimulate the para-sympathetic system e.g., Cardiac cases seem to respond 
better to melodic music. Peptic ulcer patients seem to respond better to 
rhythmic music. Muzak Corp. are researching this theory to achieve:

"A total programme. We are not so much interested in what music we use as 
with the sequence that will achieve results."

MUZAK IS HEARD RATHER THAN LISTENED TO.

Although you are not necessarily conscious of it, it will still AFFECT you. This 
process is called COMPLETE EAR APPEAL.

In the event of failure of our Basic Programme we do not panic. Muzak has 
an automatic sensing unit which will trigger a standby M4R Machine into 
operation after 4 minutes of Basic Programme failure (i.e. no audio). The 
sensing unit will automatically turn on the button number 3 M4R Machine 
which is taped in a pre-set condition. In the advent of nuclear war, Muzak 
have our own power generators to ensure no failure of the Basic Programme 
to those facilities still functioning and able to recieve our transmissions.

"We were in a slaughterhouse recently. Apparently they were having 
problems. The animals' blood would clot. They say the blood flows freely 
now. The muzak relaxes them as they die."

Muzak is not on pre-packaged cassettes and tapes. The only records of 
muzak are NOT on sale to the public, they are for internal research only. 
Muzak is transmitted by telephone cable and radio. In that way a monopoly 
can be ensured and complete adherence to the selected programme 
maintained.

Bear in mind therefore that the innocuous music heard in many elevators, 
and supermarkets, offices and fast food chains is not true MUZAK. It is but a 
pale, unscientific reflection of thee potent human engineering material.

There is no doubt that thee body metabolism functions primarily via a 
combination of electrical frequency, pulse rates, biochemical hormones and 
rhythms. Thee brain, a vaguely understood mystery, is dependant on input. 
There is no doubt that thee conglomerate forces that seek to maintain control 
over us all FOR ITS OWN SAKE, and to preserve their own vacuous position, 
are far more aware of these aspects than they admit. There is no doubt that 
muzak, drugs, suppressants of metabolic stimulation are used as weapons to 
ensure stability of an oppressive status quo. Each breakthrough is kidnapped 
from thee youth/radical culture and is emasculated, mutated and rendered 
impotent. Only then is it returned to us packaged and harmless to them, as 
commercial music, token rebellion and obvious yet useless anti-social 
behaviour that not only ensures thee continued existence of their 
omnipotence butter also generates increased incoum for their coumfort, 
security and future research into control.

Music now must be aware of thee subtleties of its effects, its structure must 
take into account thee metabolic and neurological effects and power of music 
and harness them for its own, deconditioning, anarchic ends.

Thee empty carrot of success and respect must be seen for thee transparent 
confidence trick that it is, drugs of addiction must be bypassed, thee REAL 
WAR must begin. Thee decoding is possible, our own code becoums more 
sophisticated and effective.

Everything E say is discussion, nothing is ever finished.

---

end of text