“Interval” here is a radical notion including everything conceivable between any two distinct sounds: pitch, temporal, spectral, dynamical distances. Between points of identity we find straight lines, “scales”, gradations, but also curved routes, dead ends, ramifications, labyrinths, black holes. First distribution of positions: the ensuing music is an exploration of the distances involved, a volatile, foaming texture, a lava-like state of affairs coming to a crush (wood is broken and Chinese balls start swirling inside the Tamburo Basco at that moment). Second distribution: the new positions change the way—although not the outcome—the cycle sounds. Yet: “breakdown” is creation itself: it, too, creates an “interval” that calls to be completed by a renewed round. Densities wildly fluctuate in time, lending the piece its stream-like form. The tile is an homage to French writer Raymond Roussel (1877-1933) who, in the short story “Parmi les Noirs”, placed two nearly identical sentences (with different meanings) at the beginning and end of the work. He then invented the story to bridge the “interval” thus created. Reference to the black and white keys of a keyboard, and a citation (“…at…Intervals… from the Cabin” from Roussel’s novel Impressions of Africa) completes the explanation; the mixture of French and English is deliberate.

[iv-09]