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"...despite everything being synthetic — using no recorded material — the nature of these sounds was ambiguous: they seemed almost real, yet remained at all times in a liminal and mysterious zone. Formally, they were presented in juxtaposed blocks of different durations, like 'scenes' that followed one another. Many of these blocks shared certain similarities, so that, after a while, a suggestive narrative was created." — Jesús Castañer, Scherzo, 2023

All sounds composed from my own extensions to Xenakis's stochastic synthesis.

While researching saxophone multiphonics, I discovered that a particular type carries an intervallic sonority I had been exploring since 2002 — composing it by hand for different instruments. This piece grew from that discovery: chords that sit at both extremes of the consonance and dissonance continuum, with inner consonances, interferences and beatings all coexisting.

"Luque demonstrating immense restraint in seeing his musical idea through." — Zoe Barker, Partial Durations, 2016

"Luque weaves a densely sophisticated fabric that nonetheless evokes a certain ancestral quality." — Paco Yáñez, Scherzo, 2025

In this piece, I wanted to combine two things that have fascinated me for a long time: the syncopation techniques of Central African music and Jean Tinguely's machines. I wanted each percussive hit to feel slightly off — uncomfortable, like it lands just outside its expected place in time. Following my ear, I used SuperCollider to generate slightly asymmetrical rhythms, subdividing bars according to the 'rhythmic oddity' method from Central Africa. Beneath it all, the image of a machine doing something mysterious.

All sounds composed from my own extensions to Xenakis's stochastic synthesis. Revised 2019.

All sounds composed from my own extensions to Xenakis's stochastic synthesis and granular synthesis. A principal material is a synthetic algorithmic recreation of the loudest animal on Earth relative to its body size: the lesser water boatman (Micronecta scholtzi), 2mm long, stridulating at up to 99dB by rubbing its penis against its abdomen.

The title of the piece is a reference to the song “Daisy Bell”—in 1961, it became the first song sung by a computer—and to the deactivation of the computer HAL 9000 in the film “2001: A Space Odyssey”—where HAL starts singing this song while being shut down.

HAL 9000: "Just what do you think you're doing, Dave? Dave, I really think I'm entitled to an answer to that question”.

All sounds composed from my own extensions to Xenakis's stochastic synthesis.

I have always loved the machines in Terry Gilliam's films; the way they seem to be based on depictions of the future produced in the past. For a long time, I wanted to write a piece around the idea of a retrofuturistic machine about to collapse, made out of the most disparate elements. All sounds are synthetic, composed in SuperCollider, except for a brief vocal sample

Winner of the 2007 COMPASS Prize. Revised 2009.

All sounds composed from my own extensions to Xenakis's stochastic synthesis

All sounds composed from my own extensions to Xenakis's stochastic synthesis

Ezequiel Menalled, conductor

All sounds synthetic, created in SuperCollider

All sounds synthetic, composed in SuperCollider using stochastic synthesis and granular synthesis

Winner of the Schönberg Ensemble's Max5 Chamber Music Composition Prize