Sound storms

Nothing pleased Iannis Xenakis more than a great big rattling storm. The sound of a thunderclap would have him running out of his home half naked to join the elements. If he was at sea, he’d sniff out any lightning and sail his yacht directly at it. The Greek composer was what we might call a hard bastard — a musical Ray Mears. As part of the Greek resistance during the war — battling first the Nazis then the British — Xenakis lost an eye to shrapnel. His compositions betray the same traits: those of the adrenalin junkie, the adventurer, the kamikaze.

What would happen if I composed a piece solely made up of the swooping sounds we call glissandi, he asks in Mikka ‘S’ (1976). Apart from make the audience seasick? The result is a dizzying study in zero gravity — an attempt to recreate one of those hairy voyages in the Med perhaps.