I studied Chinese music and a book called Traditional African & Oriental Music by Otto Karolyi. That really became my rulebook. Then there was a lot of experimentation and, over time, I created a mathematical system that guaranteed I wouldn’t be able to use any of my western melodic ideas. I came up with this system based on a series of numbers that relate to the five pointed star of the Communist party. Then there is a fight scene based on a 15 point star system. You rotate the numbers on the star and put in different keys,” Damon says, as if it’s the most straightforward thing in the world. “At the end all 15 parts are running together. It’s dramatic. It’s in there with Olivier Messiaen and John Cage. This is composition , not songwriting. People who come from my normal discipline just don’t tend to go far enough. We want to bring more flavour to people’s lives. And demystify opera to a degree. Destroy its elitist angle. Then for people who do like opera, open them up to new forms of music too. We want to bring a big cornerstone of Chinese culture and present it to the west. If we can do that then we’ve succeeded.