Haute couture is like an orchestra, for which only Balenciaga is the conductor. The rest of us are just musicians, following the directions he gives us.
'Sinister' is the first score I've done in which there's no orchestra in it whatsoever. There are traditional instruments I sampled, then manipulated, so you don't even recognize the source anymore.
I was curious about experimenting with different colors - kind of like having an expanded orchestra. Suddenly, instead of just writing for strings, you can add bassoon and oboe and brass. I like these extreme differences in sounds right next to each other.
When you listen to a symphony orchestra, and the basses don't - there's no bass part, there's not that much depth. That's why I'm attracted to the instrument, the bass. It brings depth. It's like playing in a rainforest.
Let me say that I've never thought to conduct because the conductor has to think to the music before the orchestra. And the orchestra comes later. For me, it's terrible.
I was much more interested in the orchestra than the piano, but I did become fairly proficient as a pianist and my teachers felt I had talent and wanted me to become a good concert pianist and earn my living that way.
The problem is, when you're working with orchestras, you only get the orchestra for about two hours before the performance to pull it all together, and that doesn't sound like a real collaboration.
I would never inflict my bassoon on anybody really other than the long suffering audiences that come to the concerts of The Really Terrible Orchestra; which actually is really terrible.
