I don’t have a theoretical language for music. I’m really inspired by sculpture, so I like to say, ‘you’re not making music, you’re creating a space. You’re building a room, putting some objects in it, and seeing what happens to the objects over time.’
I'm interested in philosophy, I studied it, and I also admit I try to read things that are way above me. I have a limit: I take what I need from it, and I do find that some of my favourite philosophical writings tend to be poppier. I admire smart people who are able to describe things simply or in a human, readable way.
It's such a contentious thing to get people in a room and just say, "go!"
It can be really weird to say, 'Hey man, let's make a record and start with this horrible zither sound.' But I was obsessed with the idea of taking a sound and completely phenomenologically thrashing it."
I think, if you can only talk about your stuff in a jargonistic way, you're not as smart as you think. You're alienating people who deserve to have a conversation, or a place in the conversation. If you take the complete inverse and are staunchly anti-intellectual, then I think there's a certain amount of resentfulness in that. There's something about that standpoint that feels a little bit insecure.
We seem to invest so much time and belief that those things are stable in some way - something to build towards, or something to use to better understand where we come from. So often those expectations are just so out of line with how the universe works. I don't see it as a productive way of seeing the world, so, when I deal with that stuff formally - or when I try to allow it to inspire me - I'm open to it twisting itself up.
I always fear with music that it can be too immediate - too geared toward a "get addicted to it and throw it away" mentality. I get so melancholic once I fall out of love with a piece of music, and I try to make music that I think will at least able to grow with me as I get older.
If there is any selfish angle, then it would probably be me just knocking myself in the head, thinking "Is there anybody here? Am I still able to communicate with other musicians?"
Games is like hardwired plumbing in the house of pop. It's not pop itself, its sort of like the behind-the-scenes arteries and capillaries of pop music.
