Some machine-y music is great, but you can apply any groove to any song now - there's literally a massive drop-down menu on most programs. And that's what takes the human being out of the process.
— Jon Hopkins
You can only make the best thing you can make, and if it offends purists, or angers certain critics, you can only have done your best.
I don't really want to go into the world of production and I don't really want to produce other people particularly.
It's really important for me to have a record which has a strong narrative feel to it.
That's the thing with electronic music, you set up systems to bring in an accident, to bring in quirks you didn't choose, but you still will have had to set up systems.
Transcendental meditation in particular is very useful in terms of unlocking those deeper parts of the subconscious where ideas are floating.
Writing music - particularly music without lyrics - calls almost exclusively on the subconscious.
I would never advocate anyone doing anything without educating themselves and finding out exactly what they're in for.
Whenever I've improved, gone up a level in sound-making, it's been because I've done an album.
For me, the score is one of the main characters of a film.
When you've got hardly any equipment, very little money and no access to any information, your sound is very much dictated by you, your setup and what you're listening to. Nothing more.
I was always fascinated particularly with synths: how they looked and stuff that when you're a kid you're like this is the most incredible thing in the world just to play.
No, I'm a quite big believer in not being in the studio if I don't feel like being in there.
I've tried to do every album in a different style, which is why I tend to leave a fair bit of time between each one.
I think I took eight or nine months to make 'Immunity.' I just focused on mainly that, and it felt amazing.
I got this pretend grass stuff called LazyLawn on my roof. Now I can go out on my terrace in bare feet, and it looks exactly like a lawn. This is what science should be for.
It's great to do something that makes your brain just switch to a different mode, and music can do that really powerfully.
I just love the hypnosis of a single bass drum.
Sometimes you can just record anything and slow it down hugely and you'll find all these hidden notes and frequencies that match up really nicely.
Music is an expression, a deep-seated feeling.
I don't want to make an album which is full of brutal and jarring techno.
When I did 'Immunity,' even though I did a film score at the beginning and also at the end, I was left uninterrupted during the middle bit. I got a good year of just writing and focusing. That, to me, is when I make the best stuff.
I do believe there's a human right to experiment with your consciousness, as long as you're harming no one else.
When you sit there doing a film score for three months there's no time to experiment.
I love starting a track in one place and not knowing where it's going to end up.
I'm a massive catastrophist by nature.
What do I call my music? Beats with melodies.
I remember having a 7-inch Depeche Mode single when I was ten and really loving that.
I don't believe in getting a lot of new gear all the time, so I get very deeply into one instrument and use it for many years.
I'm not someone who can just be paid to play keyboards on songs. I tried to do it - I needed the money, but it made me really unhappy and ill to be doing it.
I'm never really conscious of what I'm being influenced by when I'm writing.
I always liked the idea of shaving the back of my head and getting a tattoo of my own face there so that, whichever way I was looking, I could freak people out.
Your music essentially reflects everything you do, everything you've been through, in the deepest part of you.
I'm more akin to things like Sigur Ros, Mogwai, possibly. But when I'm making solo electronic music, techno stuff is just the most exciting form of rhythm.
The track 'Open Eye Signal,' when you hear that choir sound come in, that's actually me singing but sped up and with huge reverb and overlayered harmonies.
I was guided into piano lessons and 'guided' is a nice way of saying 'forced.' I don't regret it, but I think music theory as a concept doesn't work.
Meditation gives you back one or two sleep cycles every time you do it. Do it every day and it goes quite a long way towards helping insomnia.
I'm an example of someone who got a bit more focused as I got older.
As a teenager, you don't really have restraint.
Nothing competes with the buzz of making your own record.
I'm not keen on interfering with nature; I don't want to edit my genome.
I like to have an album arc that comes from an experience rather than a story.
I've learnt over the years to always be thinking of titles and ideas that I try to put across with just a couple of words. It's the difficult part when you're writing things that are basically abstract.
The first thing I remember hearing was just the dance music that was in the charts when I was growing up. I don't remember many of the names of specific tracks - they were just kind of early acid house things.
To try and create a transcendent state through music has always been the intention.
I went to a hypnotherapist and learned how to hypnotize myself and explored orthogenic training, how to relax each part of your body.
I have the inability to stop thinking and switch off from work at night, which causes a lot of sleeplessness.
I'm a bit snobbish about breakfast: eggs benedict, or eggs royale, or something like that. Or just some really amazing, proper brown toast with smoked salmon, lemon, and black pepper. That's a great start to the day.
