A few quotes from him. I used to consider SLI or even SEI until this specifically: (btw, I really do admire him, he's my fav artist ever. @~@ :hello:)
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When I was little, I decided sleep was a waste of your life. If you lived to be 100, but you didn't sleep, it'd be like living to 200. But , originally, it wasn't for more time to make music, it was just that I thought sleep was a bit of a con. I'd always been able to get away with four hours a night, but I tried to narrow it down to two. And you do get used to it. I reckon it'd take you three weeks to whittle down from eight hours to two. You should try it, it's wicked.
But it's fucking excellent, not sleeping, you really should try it. It’s sort of nice and not-nice at the same time. Your mind starts getting scatty, like you’re senile. You do unpredictable things, like making tea but pouring it in a cereal bowl.
More interesting quotes unrelated to music:
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I'm always stoned. I like it cos it's like turning a switch in your head. I like to make stuff in all kinds of different states. I like listening to music tripping, cos it's the only way I can get out of that musician mentality where you're thinking about how it's constructed, what equipment they're using. You just feel like a sad bastard when you do that, and the only way to turn that off and to stop taking it apart is to be totally off your head."
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I'm quite a people person, actually. I hang out with strange people a lot. I like mentally ill people. I've always found schizophrenia fuckin’ excellent. I think it's the next evolutionary stage of humanity. My father worked in mental hospitals, so I got interested in it from all the stories. I like the idea of people having voices in their head that operate independently. I consider that to be an advantage, not a handicap. I see these people as having two minds, and two minds are better than one. It's just a shame that, with schizos, it's working against them rather than for them.
http://i.imgur.com/lgEZt.png
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I'm a quite erratic person: From setups to actually when I'm doing a track, it's just turning and switching and changing all the time.
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I'm just some irritating, lying, ginger kid from Cornwall who should have been locked up in some youth detention centre. I just managed to escape and blag it into music.
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I'm trying to work out more ways to involve my children, because the way I do stuff is so anti-kid, it's really boring. It's not fun. It is to me, but not to them, because they don't even know what I'm doing.I'm trying to work out more ways to involve my children, because the way I do stuff is so anti-kid, it's really boring. It's not fun. It is to me, but not to them, because they don't even know what I'm doing.
Aphex Twin talking about his son
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You can't even begin to go into it. It's totally weird. They're like computer-programmed versions—clones—of yourself. They're making music now. My 5-year-old's made loads of totally insane music on his computer, and I'm just like, “What the fuck is that? What have I done to him?” He’s using Renoise. I didn't tell him how to use it, he just downloaded a crack off Pirate Bay. Age 5! He set up a Bandcamp, and he's published some tracks on there. I've since showed him how to record his voice and stuff like that. I just can't believe that's what's happening.
It's in his DNA. The way they treat computers is just mindboggling to me. He's got quite an expensive Mac, and he just carries it around like [waves book in the air]. It's like part of his body, swinging off his arm. It's so weird. That's kind of what I was always dreaming about, in a way. Like a cyborg. We're almost there, aren't we. Halfway there.
Music stuff and still entertaining:
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"I like some but only cos I think it's amusing. I hate trance and I hate jungle, but I'd rather listen to jungle cos at least it makes me laugh. When I'm in the car, I always put the pirates on for ten minutes – there's about ten jungle stations in my area, and no trance ones – but then my mates and my girlfriend punch me. They hate it! But I can totally see why people get off on jungle. Trance is more of a trend thing, whereas jungle has its roots. It's broken off its own branch of rave music, and it'll probably always be there, cos there are enough people who like it."
Just your average music stuff, not as entertaining since I don't know shit about music really:
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It is all about sound, but people forget that. They think, "Oh, I want to hear a nice tune." But what you're actually saying is you want to hear the combination of frequencies that make you feel a certain way. And more excitingly, it's about finding out the new ones. A lot of composers before me have been on this mission to change the world by getting off
equal temperament, and I'm definitely one of those.
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I work intuitively. I actually prefer it if I don't know what I'm supposed to do. If you've got an equal temperament piano keyboard, then you know what you're going to get if you play certain chords. But I actually like it if you don't know where the notes are, because then you do it intuitively. You're working out a new language, basically. New rules. And when you get new rules that work, you're changing the physiology of your brain. And then your brain has to reconfigure itself in order to deal with it.
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So if you hear a C-major chord with an equal temperament, you've heard it a million times before and your brain accepts it. But if you hear a chord that you've never heard before, you're like, "huh." And your brain has to change shape to accept it. And once it's changed shape, then you have changed as a person, in a tiny way. And if you have a whole combination of all these different frequencies, you're basically reconfiguring your brain. And then you've changed as a person, and you can go and do something else. It's a constant change. It could sound pretty cosmic and hippie, but that is exactly what's going on.
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"I used to play with the piano, do things with the strings inside, rather than play tunes on the keyboard," says the newly-bearded ambient genius, sitting on a bench in the rather dismal park outside Shepherd's Bush tube. "A bit later, when I was nine or ten, I bought loads of tapes and tape recorders, anything I could get for next to nothing. I bought a synth when I was 12, thought it was a load of shit, took it apart and starting pissing about with it. I got really into making things with electronics. I learned about it in school until I was quite competent and could build my own circuits from scratch. I started off modifying analogue synths and junk that I bought, and got addicted to making noises. That was the buzz for me. At that point, I'd never really listened to music. Most people get into music and then decide they want to make it, but I started making sounds, and only later got interested in listening to other people's stuff. I didn't really listen to my own stuff, either, I just liked making it, making new stuff constantly."