It's important to me to avoid complacently concentrating on the technical, artisanal side of composing, and proclaiming that everything I do is based on my mastery of "the trade", as the jargon would have it; on technical aspects alone. Can writing music be reduced to simply revelling in the pleasure of listening ? I don't think so. Composing also means setting down and affirming in a particular context an act that I alone am responsible for. No single composition system is being used by composers today; the contemporary composer must invent his or her own writing, musical categories and logic. Developing a personal theory about what composing consists of today, and about what it shares with other disciplines, is of prime importance to me. This isn't because I lack creativity or because I compose according to a technical model that's been imposed on me, but because I believe music can gain immensely from fruitful exchanges with other activities which, like music, are influenced by contemporary thought. Should reflection be contrasted with musical spontaneity ? My real concern is trying to channel the musical energy that flows through me, and using a system lets me to do just that: it helps me make the music more "direct", like you mentioned earlier. All my recent ensemble works point in that direction. In Feedback, Ritenuto and Le bruit de la trace for oboe and ensemble, dense, generous musical energy often emerges from the most carefully controlled system. And at the end of the day, when the music is performed, the remaining traces of the actual composition process seem to have a spontaneous feel, paradoxically enough.

I wouldn't want to say I adhere to a particular school in my work. As surprising as it might seem, I've analysed spectral music as much as scores resulting from the new complexity. I don't really think there are any "young, popular schools" today, except for those that are solely designed to make a sensation, and whose paltry content and limitations are devoid of interest. And saturation, which certain people claim is going to save the avant-garde ? I'll quote Shakespeare here: to me it's "much ado about nothing". There's nothing personal in this remark; many of the people who use this approach are close friends of mine, at least I hope they will be after reading this... but seriously - and I'm not trying to take a postmodernist stance, which is completely foreign to what I do - I have to say I feel stifled by the current musical environment, which claims that contemporary composition is happening in the avant-garde (though who would actually say they're part of that ?) or in neo-classicism. In my view the important things are a composer's rigour and his ability to see a coherent, unusual musical project through to the end. We should stop functioning in terms of negative limitations: the innumerable ways of writing music aren't mutually exclusive. On the contrary, when these contradictions rub shoulders the driving force behind composition comes to life.

The rhythm in Crispy Grain is part of the timbre; one of the dimensions of timbre. The piece is based on a complex instrumental gesture that combines timbre changes and extremely marked rhythms. The rhythmical distribution of the pitches in this gesture is based on the principle of iteration, and the pulse rapidly imposes itself as the focal point of the piece. The electronic aspect serves to reinforce this. I used a granulator, which samples small grains of the initial gesture, and distributes them strategically in space. The space itself becomes "pulsed"" as a result of the instrumental gesture.

Electronics is first and foremost a culture of sound that considerably enlarges the palette of traditional acoustic instruments. It goes without saying that our generation has grown up on popular music, which means we're more inclined to spontaneously move towards that sort of sound. Then there's the question of the relationship between instruments and electronics. I believe in the idea that electronics serves as an extension of the instrument. And this is where the all-important relationship with the player comes in. He should feel like his instrument has been hugely extended, opening the way to unexpected gestures and sounds. And electronics in Real Time - though I don't want to turn this into an ideology - is one way of gaining access to this proximity. Playing on the interaction between the two mediums; emphasising and amplifying the unusual characteristics of the instrumental timbre to such an extent that it becomes a new electronic timbre; turning the relationship to composing on its head so that electronics ends up pointing the way to a certain type of instrumental writing... the relationship between instruments and electronics is incredibly stimulating and full of potential.