Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature... The excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white, is the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium assigned to record them.

All music has political dimensions because it suggests a way of being.

It's actually very easy for democracy to disappear.

When I was at art college, the teachers who helped me were not the ones I agreed with, or the ones who encouraged me, but the ones who took very strong positions. Because if someone does that, you can find your own position in relation to it: what is it that I don't agree with? In the studio I want to articulate a position clearly enough so that other people can use it - or chuck it away if they don't want it.

People tend to play in their comfort zone, so the best things are achieved in a state of surprise, actually.

The problem with improvisation is, of course, that everyone just slips into their comfort zone and does sort of the easy thing to do, the most obvious thing to do with your instrument.

It must be quite mysterious to some people why I bother to carry on. Because, you know, I don't sell that many records.