I've always thought that each album would be my last one, and then I would be out of ideas and I would move to photography or something. I thought it was transient and it's not because of this entrenched career stubbornness that I've done it for so long, it's just something I enjoy doing, and it's the most direct way I can express something.

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.

Once you have MIDI information - I mean, it's a bit technical - that's your paint. You can slow down, pitch up, change notes within a different key. That's the foundation in which you can write things.

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.

For me it's the hypnotic simplistic reduction of hooks into some form of prayer wheel or something. I really appreciate people who can work in those quiet environments making really precious latticework like lace in a weaving but, for me, I like it a bit more hairy and like psychedelic Peruvian knits or something! You know what I mean? I go into fabric analogies, you know.

I download music just like anybody else, but it's a weird relationship when you're a musician.

I wouldn't say I'm ego-less, but I'd say there's something uncomfortable about the presentation of one's self in the media. Any image sent out is permanently in the spin cycle. And there's a paralysis of that, the way your image is presented. I've always been hesitant, but I'm definitely not shy or anything.