Jonny Greenwood on Trójka

Jonny Greenwood talks about playing Steve Reich's “Electric Counterpoint” with Reich in the audience, and about missing a night of Krzysztof Penderecki's music. He has seen the footage of Penderecki walking out to young people screaming. He has recorded a new backing track for the piece, eight guitars and two basses, and plays the top line over that, practising at home for hours a day “until you're playing it worse than when you started”.

What he likes in the piece is an electric guitar with no effects, played like an African guitar band such as the Bhundu Boys; effects are something to hide behind, and they date quickly. He is writing for an Australian orchestra, alone with paper in a room, and says “I'm very addicted to the sound of orchestras”. Beaches leave him cold. The sea, after two minutes, is “just where the water meets the ground”.