What compositional strategy can the contemporary artist use in order to produce a subversive charge in the face of a world drained of substance, meaning, value and difference? One approach is to use the materials of repression and extend their logic to such an extreme or excess that they implode from within. By using an extreme amount of ‘ordinary’ musical sounds and gestures, their reality becomes more real than real. In other words, the sounds escape the networks of meaning and association which have built up the reality of our world. In addition, with an extreme or excess of sounds, it is possible for speed to become faster than fast and thus for everything to become instantaneous. In this condition linear time and temporal reality are transcended. This compositional strategy, involving an escalation to extremes, means that the materials themselves disappear as they implode inward and take on new appearances. The realm of seduction involves the strategies of appearances. As a contemporary composer, all that I can hope for is that I have provided the physics, or the interaction of motion and energy, for your own seduction.

Physics of Seduction. Invocation #3 was recorded and produced at the composer’s studio. It was commissioned by Richard Armin with assistance from the Canada Council for the Arts (CCA) and premiered by him on April 5, 1992 in Montréal as part of the cello festival Le violoncelle à toutes les cordes. Versions of this piece exist for viola and tape and for violin and tape.

Premiere

• April 5, 1992, Richard Armin, cello • Le violoncelle à toutes les cordes, Montréal (Québec)