People read into the music. I have a feeling that they can believe that I'm trying to put some emotion forward. It's not just some technical exercise.
Make a record in your bedroom on a cheap computer, play it on pirate radio, and that's what's it's all about. You can do something really exciting and you don't need any record companies. The way I do everything comes from that, the impact of those two things.
When drum'n'bass happened, when the two-step/garage thing happened, there was a chart smash every week; it operated on the underground and the pinnacle of pop mainstream at the same time.
I've always explored things that people find a bit more freakish, like free jazz, and I'd gotten to a point where the live music I was making was really hectic and turning much more confrontational. So when I started working on Everything Ecstatic, that was very normal for me. I think it was a departure, but people read it as an escape from something, whereas every record I do is, I feel, a departure.
I thought Everything Ecstatic was the happiest of them all - hence the "ecstatic" name. The whole concept behind that was total out-and-out euphoric mania. I think tracks like "Smile Around The Face" are the jolliest things I've ever done, really. But one of the things I like about my music is the fact that it's instrumental, so there are no lyrics to guide people.
When I first heard bands like Tortoise, it seemed to come off the back of that world, like let's make a record with three vibraphones and release it on a seven-inch with black-and-white artwork.
So many people I was at school with have all ended up being musicians and putting records out.
My father is a massive, massive music fan. I grew up listening to rock, soul and jazz.
If I bare my soul in bits and make it personal, I think people can sense that when they hear it.
I think the most important thing for me is putting out records that document ideas.
I realized there were no words or anything in my music, nothing that people would have to draw them in a little bit more.
Gospel isn't some ditty to make people enjoy their afternoon - it's communicating with God.
I find the more I DJ, the more ideas I have and the more music I want to make.
I find that people in American are often much more purist. If you're into hip-hop, you're totally into hip-hop - you wear the uniform, that's all you listen to. If you're a goth, you're totally a goth - you've got, like, 4,000 piercings, black hair, you really go for it.
I feel like there's a young generation of producers who are taking inspiration from dubstep but trying to push it in other directions.
The lo-fi scene and the riot grrrl thing had a huge influence on me. As a teenager I went to see Bikini Kill and all those bands.
People ask me about all sorts of sounds. There's a sound of a screeching toy or a rubber duck and everybody asks me about that, but it was an absolutely random thing, just a cool sound.
I like putting a lot of personal touches in the music.
With a lot of the music I really love, like Miles Davis, you can go back and see the processes and the stages.
I've done quite a few records now, and I look back and think of them as documents of my musical journey.
After putting out quite a few albums, there's a feeling of why make another? I was trying to make something that was an album experience.
It's such a normal thing for a dance producer to make music and try it out in the club, but that was relatively new to me. I wanted to make a good album that felt like it had a point.
I worked on the tracks so they sounded as good as possible in there... I wanted to make something that was for the night.
