I'm a folk artist at heart.
I always play songs that are very based in folk music.
The opening of 'There Will Be Blood' with that score and then deafening silence was memorable.
I've always gone into the studio with a very clear understanding of a song, of the words or, if it's an instrumental piece, of the melodies, and that never changes.
Instrumental music can be about anything. It's about a mood, and I usually title my instrumental songs long after they're written. Sometimes I figure out the titles when I'm doing the CD package, and that's very common for a lot of people who write instrumental music.
Think how different it is to experience a word than a sound. When you're hearing a singer, you're controlled by the words, because you understand the language, you know what they're talking about, and you're forced to think about what they're talking about. But when you're hearing that same thing without a word, you're free to wander.
All the Jewish tradition I had came from my grandmother, who grew up in Palestine and eloped with my grandfather and went to New York. She lived very close to us until she died when I was around 20. She sang a lot of songs, led the Passover seders. It was a very rich part of my life, and my grandmother was a big part of my life.
I'm one of those people who says 'Yes' to everything, and in New York, that's a real liability. In the city, I could be playing seven nights a week and not finding the time to finish my own compositions.
My songs are somewhere between story and situation. There's also character and mood. I'm an intuitive writer, both with instrumentals and songs with words.
There is one live track on the album, 'Einsamaller,' and that had a conductor - Eyvind Kang.
The musicians in the band, and myself as a performer, love the risks of the unpredictable and the feeling of jumping off cliffs musically.
