If you have an audiophile in your friend group, you may have been subjected to a rant or two about how digital formats “flatten sound.” And they are not wrong - the warmth of analog sounds can be explained by the inclusion of noise in addition to the information, that is, what we identify as “music” out of the vast spectrum of possible sounds. 

Much before our nostalgic record collectors, composers like Iannis Xenakis were experimenting with sounds beyond and in between notes. In the pictured Metastasis (1953–54), which translates to “after or beyond stability,” you can see how Xenakis’ composition takes lines instead of points (notes) as basic elements, charting the distance between notes (intervals) with pitch on the y axis and time on the x axis. Motion occurs not between serial notes, but in degrees of density, mass, and rate of change. 

Using glissandos (a technique of gliding from one note to the other) for each of more than sixty parts of the orchestra, Xenakis not only urges attention to microtones between each conventional note but also to music’s cross-pollination with architecture, math, and sonic experiences outside the category of “music.” Within this single piece, he referenced the Einsteinian theory of relative time; Le Corbusier’s architectural theory that motivated him to translate into music the experience of seeing a building from different angles; and his own experience during the war where the “sound-mass” of gunfire morphed into something different from the sum of individual shots fired. In fact, Metastasis became the basis for the Philips Pavillion, constructed entirely from parabolic surfaces. 

Too much information? The key to sitting with Metastasis is to let raw experience swell up and rupture back and forth the boundaries of “too much”—but is it too much sound, too much noise, or too much information? Those borders themselves will shift as you continue to listen, like the silhouette of a mythical beast emerging amongst the stars.