pneumothorax (ˌnjuːməʊˈθɔːræks)

pneumothorax (ˌnjuːməʊˈθɔːræks) is a sound study inspired by extreme transformations of a meaning. Therefore, in this piece I try to play with extreme interpretations of instruments, and extreme changes of the sound worlds they create.

"P-p-p-pneoumothorax is a word that is long. They're just trying to put some punk back into punctured lung..."

I used to sing together with Keiser Chiefs in my earphones in 2007, while the meaning of the word remained completely irrelevant. Eight years later, I finally googled it when one of my premature born twins developed the condition on her third day and was barely saved, but then fully recovered. Two months ago, a friend had a lung surgery due to the same condition, and then yesterday he promised to describe the details of the experience to me.

The meaning of the word, in my case, transformed from 'silly lyrics' to 'life and death matter' to 'something i occasionally stumble upon'. And these vast borderlines of interpretation of a subject, as well as extreme capabilities of their transformation inspired me to name this work with this interesting word and relate it to the condition.

I have a history of making wind instruments sound like breathing machines. Together with the possibility to make clicking sounds, they somehow always inspire me to think about hospital equipment. Therefore, the idea of creating a "breathing" state and then finding a way to create a collapse that would result in a complete opposite "vacuum" state, in layered, varied and transferred interpretations, seemed like an interesting concept for a piece, that could be called after a medical term for a collapsed lung.