Last week was double bass week! On two consecutive nights I got to collaborate with two of my favorite double bass players. First, on 28.2, Florentin Ginot premiered the piece I composed for him last year, To the bone, for double bass and FX pedals at the Concertgebouw Brugge. I got to know Florentin personally when I was invited to collaborate with the formidable musikFabrik ensemble in 2018. After that project, Florentin approached me for other collaborations, first with musikFabrik, and later in different projects as a duo with him, each time in an improvisational context, where I would play live-electronics. One project was rather dark, with machines that would deteriorate and melt during the performance.  The other, a  video work, in collaboration with video artist Janet Sinica, was much lighter and slightly absurd.

A bit later, in 2023 I told Florentin: "I want to write a composition for you! Are you in?". He was, and proposed to write a piece that would include his ever growing FX pedal setup. And then serendipity helped us a bit. When I mentioned this project in an informal talk with Jan De Moor of the Concertgebouw Brugge, his eyes started shining just a shade brighter, and proposed to commission this work. And after a lovely experience with the Frequenz_ Kiel Festival several years earlier, I contacted its curator, Sherif El Razzaz, who agreed on becoming the second commissioner.

"To the bone" was actually written twice. A first version was finished in May 2025. When we workshopped the fresh score at the musikFabrik studios shortly thereafter, Florentin accidentally amplified his bass too much at one point, creating a beautiful, deep, room-filling feedback sound. We dived into this black (feedback) hole, and when I got home that evening, I threw away about a third of the composition and started working on a new version, which would incorporate this new material. Two months later, the second version was ready. Here you can see the live performance from the premiere at the Concertgebouw Brugge on 28.2.2026.

"To the bone" was not only inspired by Florentin's playing and setup, but also by my long-time collaboration with Belgian double bass improviser Peter Jacquemyn and his approach to the instrument. It was wonderful then, that, the day after the premiere of To the bone, I could play an improvised set with Peter Jacquemyn in a squat in Brussels. As always, playing with Peter is walking - no, running and jumping - on a razor's edge: exploding energy, quick changes and constant twists and turns. Not for the week of heart! But truly invigorating (at least for me!). Our duo recordings are already 10 years old, and we pledged to make some new recordings in the near future. Now let's wait for serendipity to do its work. For now, you can hear one track here (if you want to buy the full album, you can drop me a note).  

Cyborg Flesh, a 55-minute long composition for string quartet (Arditti Quartet),  e-guitar (Yaron Deutsch) and live-electronics (me), was supposed to be premiered at the Wien Modern festival in November 2024, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Arditti Quartet.

One week before the premiere, however, Lukas Fels broke his arm. The premiere had to be postponed to 2025, and the planned second performance at the Rainy Days Festival in Luxembourg, to 2026. However, Catherine Kontz, artistic director of Rainy Days, was so kind to still offer us the stage at the planned date, and proposed that we work out a concert program without Lukas and his cello. For this concert I proposed a 50-minute musical structure (Broken|Glued) that moves seamlessly between several sections of Cyborg Flesh, some improvisations, Klaus Lang's electric guitar solo Chansons Lointaine et douce, and Hilda Paredes' transcription of Dowland's In Darkness Let me Dwell, with the electric guitar replacing the cello. 

Lukas has recovered fully by now (hurray!), and the true premiere of Cyborg Flesh is approaching quickly (31/10/2025). I've started to reacquaint myself with this work, which I worked on for about a year (July 2023 to July 2024), but which, right now, still feels like a fremdkörper, after having had to put it in the fridge for a year. Perhaps that is how it feels to have cyborg flesh?

Cyborg Flesh is a commission by the Arditti Quartet, Wien Modern & Rainy Days Festival, supported financially by the Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung.