Sometimes language is not enough.

There actually had been a tradition within English music of the '60s of people looking eastwards, maybe in quite a naïve way, but nonetheless, you had musicians like George Harrison or Bryan Jones recording the musicians of Joujouka in North Africa.

In a lot of African instruments, you find a rattle, and sound engineers have a hard time making sense of it.

I think the origins of music have probably to do with magic and transcendence as well.

The closer you get to the source, the more you begin to understand its essential nature.

One of my interests is to understand what constitutes the vibe of a place and what makes one concert different from another.

I have much clearer memories of my time in Egypt: songs on the radio, the rhythms that accompanied belly dancers, the sound of the adhan - the Muslim call to prayer. I just soaked it all up.