- You started your music career as a guitarist (a very special type of guitarrist I must say) and since then

you haven't stop changing your instruments and methodologies. What remains from your very first albums in your present music and what is new on it? There was a radical change, like a reversal of values. By 2001 i realized (after finishing "Violence of Discovery and Calm of Acceptance" that i had done the best i could hope to do, the guitar drone work was complete and i would repeat myself if i continued. I decided to stop it and start something new, which is now the Space Program, launched in 2004. The common traces are perhaps the work with electronics, i stopped playing guitar. What is new? Almost everything, an entirely new understanding of music, as something that is shaped by silence, an approach to discipline and intuition derived from jazz music, and... so many things... - I remember your "Space" album being described by the guys at Staubgold as a turning-point in your music. Do you agree? Yes, of course, it is the first and fundamental release of the Space Program. It took 2 years to complete. - Haven't been some other major shifts in your music since then? No, these shifts don't occur often in a lifetime, i have been consistently developing this new concept of music in various aspects since 2004 they're all different manifestations of the same idea. I have been learning a lot and have much more to learn ahead. - I guess I'm asking that because I see the Space elements series as very unique even in the context of your own music... Can you explain in general terms your main interests as a musician today? I am interested in the creation of space. In the freedom of the individual, and the responsibility that comes with it. In a music that is disciplined and structured, but totally open and free. In the ability to play at the "razor's edge" and try to make good choices every second. - What makes you change your working direction and go on to explore new sound territories, procedures and methodologies? As i said above, only exhaustion of a particular field would have me exploring new territories, but i have been exploring the same direction since 2004. In fact, what i'm trying to say with the Space Program is that working in the field of electronics, using the full sound spectrum with an instrumental and physical approach, based on notions of phrasing and disciplined individual decisions, is a vast territory yet to be explored. Its creative potential is enormous.

- I've seen you have been using something resembling to Kraftwerk's pocket calculator (please excuse this super cheesie comparation) and some kind of gesture-based musical gloves. Are you still using these two devices? Can you speak about them? I built glove controllers as one of my first new instruments, they have several sensors and switches to perform computer generated sinewaves. I haven't been using them lately because the wires are getting old and they break. [i don't know which other device you refer to] I have been using several other instruments, like modified amplifiers, electrode oscillators and modular synthesizers. - What do you know about the concept behind the Supersimetria program and the other artists that will take part on it? I think the concept is fascinating, for half of the audience to be aware that they're sharing an experience with an unseen other half, there's a sense of "otherness" that is different from the audiences' usual communal sense of sharing a space and an event. For each person, half the audience is real and the other half is imaginary... still real, but not experienced, only imagined "on the other side". - I would say the program could be described in very general terms as a computer music program. I believe the use of the computer has increasingly become more and more important in your work. Is that correct? Absolutely not, that's deeply mistaken. The Space Program is indeed a movement away from computer music, towards a more human and physical approach to performance. Except for the gloves, there are no computers involved in this music. Most of my instruments are completely analog. - Can you explain what are you going to do in your Barcelona show? Three of my Space Studies, which are solo performance structures, although i still haven't decided exactly which ones. - I believe the curators of the program asked you and the rest of artists to create a very special kind of work that involves the particular design of the space... What are you planing? I plan to transform the aural perception of the space, as an environment for performance. - The "space" concept is so present in your work, both literally (in the titles of your albums) and suggested by the aesthetics of your compositions. In this sense, I guess this commission must have been interesting and challenging for you... Can you explain how "space" is important for you and

your music? Space is a basic condition of our existence. What we see is space, we move in space, and aural space allows us to communicate with speech and music. We can also think of our range of options as space, space to decide, and to think we need mental space. Every such instance of space tends to get increasingly saturated in our times. These notions have direct implications in social life, and the musical forms i work with can actually become metaphors for a model of social values, pretty much like jazz music has been for decades. In other words: how do i make an absolutely personal statement, in a way that disturbs nobody and even creates space for other people's personal statements? As you can see, then, the Space Program is not about aesthetics, it's more about ethics. - At this point I think I'd like to ask you about Phill Niblock. You will be playing one after the other and I believe he has been somehow an influence for you. His music can also be described as "spatial"... Please, let me know how Niblock's approach to sound has been inspiring for you and how your show in Barcelona will dialogue with his... Phill is an old and very dear friend, he is an incredibly generous and supportive entity. When i first met him, i had already taken a direction, i don't think you can find traces of his influence in my music. I am privileged to have collaborated with him. Niblock's music relates to space through poetic appreciation of the sound phenomena he provokes. You turn your head or you walk around and the sound changes. That's a different way to relate to notions of space. In fact, the contrast between the two concerts will be dramatic - and therefore very exciting. - Would you describe your music as minimalism? No, it never was. - I believe your experience in the US in the mid-nineties was quite fundamental in your work. Do you agree? No i don't. But i made great friends. - You have also extensively collaborated with European experimental musicians. Do you see differences between the American and European experimental approach to sound? I'm not interested in an experimental approach to music and i don't perceive as such most musicians i collaborate with. I have been lucky to work with musicians i admire, and the reasons i admire them for have no relation to with their origin... I suppose i really don't care, it's like asking "do you prefer to breathe european air or american air?". What really matters is the quality of listening and how it impacts on space. And that is universal.

Dear Rafel, Thanks for your answers. I hope is ok for you if I ask one last question... A long time ago I read an interview with you (I don't remember where it was published) in which you explained how you decided to stop doing "inmersive" music and start working on a more "active listening" You see that's not what i said... oriented compositions. I think this consideration is very interesting because, in my opinion, "ambient" or "immersive" music has today become almost a modern standart (a clich so to say...). Nowadays, a big part of all the stuff being published under such labels like "experimental", "ambient" or this super cheesie category called "home-listening" share this homogenic aesthetic aproach based in time suspension and dronic compositions... What do you think about this? Do you agree? Why do you think this is happening? I see music divided in two main categories: moving and static. Music that "goes" and musc that "stays". Formerly there was only "moving" music in Western culture - that is, music that has a certain progression, changes, discourse, that unfolds some kind of structure, like all the classical, all the jazz and the songs. In the 1960's there was interest in some kinds of static music, from India, Africa, etc. Minimalism in music had a lot of input from this and became very influential, but remained "avant-garde" for a long time, and nowadays it's common, which is natural. The same happened with 1970's German rock. We learned to enjoy music that doesn't go anywhere, music that remains, as a permanent presence, that has no reason to change into a different part. Perhaps now there is a bit too much of it because it's very easy to do in a superficial way. It also happens that successful formula usually creates conservative circuits of promotion and distribution. I made "static", immersive music for 15 years, and when i decided to change, i also wanted to shift from static to moving music. I noted that such an attitude reflects how we relate to the world around us through music. With immersive music, you retreat into a bubble of comfort with an escapist attitude, disconnected from the world. I thought the world was getting on serious trouble (still is, and getting worse every day), so maybe i should change my attitude and become more participative. I knew the new Space Program would be active music, where sharp awareness and direct action would be central. Music to think with your own head, music that you make with your hands, as everything you do in life. Music that is not automatic, doesn't run on its own and is not about technology. Music that is never comfortable, every second of it is on the edge, that demands understanding of what's going on. This also demands a totally different level of

musicianship.