And in a repressed society, artists fulfil a sense of harking back to instant gratification, or immediate expression, by doing things that function on the edge of society, or outside of what is conventionally accepted.
I did gardening and cooking and drawing and reading to try take the pressure off the music – just being eclectic and putting the fun back in and bringing more innocence in again is really important.
I always think that the exceptional people are those who remain outsiders but still communicate on a grand scale. I think I want everyone to feel more free, and so I feel really claustrophobic on behalf of lots of people.
I’ve hidden behind my hair more than clothes. Sometimes having long hair with a fringe is very useful when you don’t want to look at people. I used to have very short hair, but long hair is my thing – a black nocturnal shield.
I think what I wanted to do was meet someone who knew more than me about songwriting structure and progressions and middle eights and things that more traditional writers write and I don’t usually employ.
I wrote about Freud and the process of sublimation, which is when you learn to stop breast-feeding, or stop going to the toilet whenever you want to. It’s about learning to repress a desire for instant gratification.
When I use electronic beats and program things, there’s something quite brain about that – you’re feeling it in your body but it’s like a puzzle you wanna solve, and it gets very detailed. I really enjoy that side of music.
I think the best cure is to stop doing the thing that you think you should be doing and go and have a bit of fun in another medium, maybe other crazy things.
Exploring the different avenues and being open to synchronicity and crazy coincidences and little things happening is part of going on your journey to investigate – and the little jewels you might find along the way, my job is to bring those back home and put them on my album.
I had Halloween parties every year, as it was my birthday five days before. My parents would actually put prosthetic noses on, and my dad would wear a top-hat and tails, put on a fake curly moustache, and hold a pipe.
I’m not really frightened by experimenting – that’s the main thing. I really like mixing very old beautiful pieces that are from thrift shops or that have some historical value with quite new futuristic things.
And in a repressed society, artists fulfil a sense of harking back to instant gratification, or immediate expression, by doing things that function on the edge of society, or outside of what is conventionally accepted.
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