Abstract:

"balagan" (commissioned by Ina/GRM, 2001) is a pure electroacoustic piece for eight channels. The sounds are all of acoustic origin, processed primarily by fragmentation and hybridization. The processing was done by programs I wrote in Max/MSP; the octophonic spatialization was done using my own streamlined and automated version of Ircam's Spatialisateur. In what follows, I start from the founding idea of the piece ­ disorder ­ discussing how this idea gave rise to the form, and then showing how it relates to the composition of the sounds. I discuss the kinds of sound processing used, emphasizing the different methods of control, and focusing in some detail on two contrasting approaches to soundfile fragmentation.