Sten Hanson My Galloping Heart

"On the night between the 1st and 2nd of April 2001, after a period of increasing fatigue, feebleness and shortness of breath, I understood that the reason must be bad function of the heart. I felt dizzy and my heart was beating irregularly, fast and hard. I took a taxi to the hospital Emergency Room. I was in a hospital bed for one week and felt my body slowly lose all its reserve power, while the heart was beating two or three times faster than normal. Numerous medications were administered but none restored a normal heart rate. Normal heart rate was finally restored through electric shock treatment. Several ultrasonic heart examinations were performed, and they were all recorded on video. I managed to obtain a copy of those videos. The sounds from them are, with the exception of the final electronic choir, the only sources of the sounds in this composition, which tries to depict the positive and the negative experience of how fragile man can be and yet how strong the will to live really is. The composition is dedicated to the chief physician Inger Axelsson M.D. and her staff at the cardiology unit of the SÖS hospital, Stockholm. Cover design by Sten Hanson and Leif Elggren."