I wanted to use the studio like a microscope for sound, which is what good engineers do.

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

As soon as I hear a sound, it always suggests a mood to me.

The smart thing in the art world is to have one good idea and never have another.

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.

I wanted to get rid of the element that had been considered essential in pop music: the voice.

When I work there are two distinct phases: the phase of pushing the work along, getting something to happen, where all the input comes from me, and phase two, where things start to combine in a way that wasn't expected or predicted by what I supplied. Once phase two begins everything is okay, because then the work starts to dictate its own terms. It starts to get an identity which demands certain future moves. But during the first phase you often find that you come to a full stop.