Working with devices and guitar pedals and mixers and synthesizers is what I do, and I prefer people not focus on that because it's kind of distracting from what the point should be. At least for me, it's to have the primacy of aurality in the experience of that evening.

There have always been people making music. On their porches, playing folk songs. Playing piano in quiet salons. You don't have to listen to every MySpace page, so what's the difference? It's just noise that you filter out.

You have to make rough decisions with sequencing and work within the limitations of having good audio for 15 minutes on a vinyl side.

I found all my reading and writing informed my music in subtle ways. Ravedeath came out of studying the pipe organ, going to New Jersey - the world's loudest and biggest pipe organ.

It depends on what kind of minimalism you're talking about, of course. I love both those artists - Brian Eno and William Basinski. I would say my minimalism references are early American minimalists from the 70s.

I really support criticism as a craft and as a vocation. People who devote as much time to thinking about sound through writing as I do practicing and forming it, the whole system of journalism seems to not yield rewards sustainable as a craft. So few can spend enough time to be serious about it and approach it with confidence and a kind of depth. And that's good on one level, because you have some leveling, that's kind of maybe leveled the petty fiefdoms of undeserving people but it's also made it hard to make a living as a writer.

I wouldn't say that I'm a consummate live artist. Album work is kind of just like quilt weaving or something. But live music is just like a method of emptying out the mind through volume. Volume as a form that allows you to do different things. And that doesn't really translate to recorded music, like how do you listen to that, on Spotify or in your car? It's not the same kind of effect. I would say that the loudness is a huge part of what I do live.