The dominant theory coming out of Hollywood is that peoples' attention spans are getting shorter and shorter and they need more stimulation.

I got an amazing 10-CD set, it's the music that Alan Lomax recorded in Haiti in 1936. And what's incredible is how fantastic the drummers are and how off-the-grid they are. The liveliness is astonishing; they're just totally alive, these recordings. It's very interesting, to me, to be reminded of that, that there was a time when things were not that tight.

I take sounds and change them into words.

I prefer to shoot the arrow, then paint the target around it. You make the niches in which you finally reside.

Avant-garde music is sort of research music. You're glad someone's done it but you don't necessarily want to listen to it.

The lyrics are constructed as empirically as the music. I don't set out to say anything very important.

If you've spent a long time developing a skill and techniques, and now some 14 year-old upstart can get exactly the same result, you might feel a bit miffed I suppose, but that has happened forever.