Squarepusher Quotes

My father had a phase of having jukeboxes all over the house. He was a music lover but he was also into musical machinery. Not instruments, he was never interested in playing particularly but there would be these odd objects, like valve amplifiers being dismantled on the kitchen table. My mum wasn't massively keen on that, but it was part of the environment.

I’m not that interested in what people make of it, or how people consider me. That’s nothing to do with me.

The only way to find that territory is trying to keep your mind constantly open. That's the only way that you're ever going to see the sort of signs of where to go.

I don't know how many records I'm selling.

I've never really been that much of a fan of Ninja Tune.

Your responsibility as an artist is to experiment.

I want to change peoples' minds about music, I want to bring the really brutal experimental stuff to peoples' attention.

I couldn't find a group that wanted to do what I wanted to do. No one was really up for it.

I'm starting to play all the melodies with kind of keyboard sound but playing it from the bass guitar.

There's a really rough and relatively consistent hierarchy of concerns. My musical interests come first and principally my fascination with how notes and rhythms interlock. Then comes the technical side like programming, instruments and designing instruments. Next is production and mixing and beyond that I start to care less.

I'm into music for all different sorts of purposes.

Times of my life, brief periods without music, have completely felt dangerously over the edge.

I'd say that it's important for music to be there that gives you a challenge, that rearranges things in your head.

I think the best way is to forget about racing people and just find territory that's fresh.

If it's a language you don't understand and you're not concerned with the meanings of the words, your impression comes from how the words look, particularly if the language uses different characters.

Because, when I'm making music, I don't think about anything, you know? All I think about is what I want to hear. So that for me is what I want - I want my head to be constantly being rearranged.

But I always communicate with the audience. I never pretend like I'm just in my bedroom making a track. The whole point of doing a gig is, like, a feedback thing between you and the audience.

One of the more dispiriting things I think about endless touring is hearing the same piece of music over and over again and I end up feeling like a fraud.

What happens in the studio is technically the same thing that happens on the stage. In the past I had to make quite brutal adaptations of the material to make it work on stage. I don't always like doing that because sometimes you're shaving away the things that you actually quite like about them, the spontaneity of it.

I'm basically a musician.

My plan is if you come to the shows in the first run of dates the versions you'll hear live are quite close to the record. But because I can set this up identically afterwards in a hotel room I can actually work when I'm on the move. The aim is that all the pieces will have had substantial remixes and different parts added and subtracted.

I make music to generate atmospheres, not to complement already existing ones.

I love traveling. I love just going about on my own, feeling I have no roots.

It's important for that to exist in a society that doesn't present you with any genuine problems.

Stereotyping and generating brands around musicians I think contributes to their eventual demise.

I was starting to feel really suffocated, using the sequencer.

But I don't really listen to much be-bop at all at the moment.

I’ve started thinking about pure electronic music again. Something very melodic, very aggressive.

I'm always pleased with my work. Absolutely.

I have a rough idea when I walk into a studio though.

The main thing I’m into is going about on a bike, taking random routes; I’m really into the idea of making up journeys, and just seeing where they take you, because they always end up taking you someplace freaky.

I'll alight upon words because I think they suggest any number of things.

I didn't want to try and borrow kudos from Indonesian culture. I was trying to get a fresh perspective on these instruments. I'm not doing a Paul Simon Gracelands and stealing all this African music and not give anyone any credit.

The older ideas are rendering more and more bland music.

People have often assumed that for music to be emotionally powerful it has to come directly from a human hand, whereas I disagree with that, and enjoy proving these people wrong. This project is an excellent way of exploring that area more.

Just the type of music that was around at the same time as I was writing. Some of it was wicked, definitely. But there was just one direction which I thought could be pushed that no one was pushing.

I've never been about trying to promote a brand of Squarepusher. I've never been keen on that idea that these are the character traits that I've got to stick with and amplify and keep pushing forward and pushing on the public. I'm really happy to throw it all away and start each record with a blank slate but I concede you've got a point, there are things I can't get rid of, no matter how hard I try.

One of the more distant concerns is with the visual interpretation of the music. I find it fascinating but I don't always particularly get involved with it.

My history is really playing live - not writing or recording.

I'm trying to fly the flag for the days of electronic music where people who are making it are also building the gear because that was what was happening in the very early days of electronic music. And that spirit is one of the things that really appeals to me about electronic music so I'm putting this forward as a way to keep that.

One of those things that I find hard to dispose of is my attitude to album sequencing, the layout of the pieces.

I like my stuff 'cause I only ever end up with tracks that I really, really like. It always appeals to me.