It's funny, I played a social gig once - we were playing music that was rhythm based, but it was going in some strange places. Some people came up to me afterward and said, "Can you play a tune that we'll all recognize?" I've carried that with me forever - why would you want a tune you could recognize? What's the point of that?

It's not like that because the improvisation makes it automatically democratic. No one's leading anything. I didn't have to worry about anyone feeling involved. It was just the most natural, easy process of making music.

I like the fact that everyone is nostalgic for vinyl, and I'm being nostalgic for CDs, which are like the new outdated things that no one is going to mourn the loss of - everyone's already written them off.

I think being a DJ is that thing of learning what makes a crowd move. As a DJ, you're constantly learning. It's like chess or something. After a couple of years, you think you're good, then you see a real DJ that's been doing it for 20 years and they just blow you away. I think that's one of the things I like about DJing: you can get better and better and better.

You're trying to make music, and then at the end of it you give reasons for everything.

That happens quite a lot in Hot Chip - you can let go of something that was originally essential to the creation of a song.

I'll also listen to music on a Discman and realize how nice it can sound when it's not compressed to MP3 format.