I got interested in the idea of music that could make itself, in a sense, in the mid 1960s really, when I first heard composers like Terry Riley, and when I first started playing with tape recorders.

When you sing with a group of people, you learn how to subsume yourself into a group consciousness because a capella singing is all about the immersion of the self into the community. That's one of the great feelings - to stop being me for a little while and to become us. That way lies empathy, the great social virtue.

The trouble begins with a design philosophy that equates 'more options' with 'greater freedom.'

Well, I am a dilettante. It's only in England that dilettantism is considered a bad thing. In other countries it's called interdisciplinary research.

Agressive music can only shock you once. Afterwards its impact declines. It's inevitable.

I've got a feeling that music might not be the most interesting place to be in the world of things.

Some people say Bowie is all surface style and second-hand ideas, but that sounds like a definition of pop to me.