and, out of nothing, a breathing, hot breath on my ankles

About

Much of the surface of this piece inhabits an area on the brink of silence. This is an extremely unsafe area for the performer, because he or she constantly risks losing the sound altogether. It is hoped that the soft dynamic levels focus the listener's attention on the microscopic shifts in timbre, pitch and loudness that are the central material of the composition. Below the surface, rather than employing an overall unifying structure/process, several processes are active simultaneously, and much of the composition is the result of these processes tearing at each other while competing for priorty. There is an "organic" process of growth, that conditions the placement of events in time, as well as the pitch and timbral relationships between these events. Superimposed on this structure is a spectral analysis of the title of the piece, taken from Ezra Pound's Cantos, which also impacts on the placement of events and their internal shape, effectively "damaging" the underlying organic organisation. The third main layer relates to pitch organisation and is based on an analysis of Edgard Varese's "Density 21.5". This layer is of particular importance for the "grace note" figures that abound, figures which exist "outside" the main body of the composition, but give important structural clues relating to both the first and second processes mentioned above.