This is the sound of my book, Entangled Life, being devoured by a fungus (Pleurotus, which produces oyster mushrooms). The fungus made such a good noise that I couldn’t resist playing along on the piano…

The video and recording of the book being digested was made by the sound ecologist Michael Prime (Youtube: 'Carbon Ladder'). The electrodes record the bioelectric activity of the fungus alongside its galvanic response (like a lie detector). These data streams control a tunable oscillator. Michael Prime uses filters to shape the raw oscillator signal, but the fluctuations in pitch and rhythm that you hear are a real-time sonic representation of the activity of the fungus as it eats the book.

With many thanks to my friends at Grocycle.com who inoculated and incubated the books.

Visit merlinsheldrake.com for more about Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures.