You have to sit with the songs until they start to live. Or do things straight-up spontaneously. I set up a beat just like I do in the live show, add the lyrics that I wrote in thirty minutes - I already had a topic in mind because I had this crazy experience with this girl who was trying to get close to me and it freaked me out because she was really close to another friend of mine, and I thought, "This is a story, I'm gonna make this into a song."

I guess I've always had such an identity crisis when it comes to other people's understanding of me. I don't feel it in myself but from an outsider's point of view, I can see they must be thinking, "Who the hell does this guy think he is?" But recently I've been thinking, okay, a white guy can't sing soul, but would a black person be made exempt from singing opera because it's not a tradition that belongs to them? It's the same kind of argument.

It's a despicable world we're living in now. It's the most disgusting time for music in terms of big wigs, guys who like playing the game. It's hard to get your stuff heard. I find it really annoying actually. I think my music would appeal to a lot of people but being on Warp in the States it's really hard to get radio play and exposure. We need to push this internet revolution forward quickly.

I wanted to make an album that I wanted to put on myself and could listen to again and again. In the past I've done these records that are very in-depth. I love them and I'm very proud of them but I've always found it hard to listen to them again and again...they're very demanding.

I'm always constantly battling with dry patches. I think I need a Plan B. Thankfully, I've always been able to pull something out of the bag in the heat of the moment.

I really wanted to maintain that bedroom philosophy to creating stuff.

It's weird how things are really stop-start in my creative process. I can't just turn it on - it just happens kind of randomly and I've just got to ride it when it's good. Surf's up! It's like that.