A condition of the commission for this piece by the Dog's of Desire Ensemble was that the composition was to relate somehow to the New York State Museum's exhibit on the history of the motorcycle. When I received the commission in January 2001, I was still recovering from injuries I had suffered in a head-on collision car accident in November 2000. When I learned that the concert was going to be in conjunction with an exhibit on the motorcycle... I wanted to find a way to translate the visceral experience of the motorcycle into music — the noise/rumble is what I find beautiful and is what makes the motorcycle sexy — it shakes your whole body. It was then, that I knew I wanted to approach the harmony through an element of noise and contrast it with pitch-based sounds. The electronic sounds that open and close the piece are based on the most elemental component of mammalian life: the heartbeat. The sounds were modeled after the EKG taken of my heartbeat by doctors after my accident.

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