I have a Yamaha YC-45D organ in my studio. It's actually Terry Riley's favorite keyboard, so if you find old clips of him on YouTube, he's usually playing one of these.
I like to have space between the notes. I like to use silence.
I believe that things can be expressed very powerfully through simplicity.
When I'm writing film music, I feel like I'm more a filmmaker than a composer. It's more about what the film needs. I'm basically part of the team that's creating a film, and the music is a very important part, but it's just one part of many.
For me, what people generally call sound design is just one component of orchestrating a score.
Cheap electronics are not built to be repaired. They're just used and then discarded.
I like the whole Pacific Northwest.
There's something quite shocking in this idea that everything is disposable and that people don't care for things anymore.
I try not to obfuscate or to be to obscure or to be too cerebral. I like to work on a visceral, emotional level.
I always do very detailed demos. I feel that it's better to show the director a demo that sounds as close to the final thing as possible with samples. It takes time to create, but I feel that it's better to get the director on board very early on in terms of the sounds that I have in my head.
Always really good audiences in Belgium.
I don't watch TV that much, but I like to get series on DVD and watch them all back-to-back.
I think melancholy is kind of a misunderstood emotion. I don't think it's necessarily an unpleasant or bad emotion.
Melancholy is a state that I very much enjoy being in, actually. It's not the same as feeling sad. It's a more complex emotion; it derives from a tragic view of the world, a tragic view of art.
I think my music is a way of communicating very directly with people and with people's emotions. I try to make music that doesn't need layers of complexity or obfuscation to speak to people.
Music should resonate with people on an emotional level. That's one of the criterions I use for an idea. Does it speak simply and directly without obfuscation and without being unnecessarily complex or obscure?
I'm interested in extremes, in many ways.
When I write music for a film, I'm not writing a solo album, and I'm not writing a personal piece. I'm part of a team of artists. So I think like a filmmaker more than a composer.
'Orphee' is, for me, about changes: about moving to a new city, leaving behind an old life in Copenhagen, and building a new one in Berlin - about the death of old relationships and the birth of new ones.
Making 'Orphee' has been a true labour of love, one that has been a part of my life for six years, and yet the music always remained fresh - it was constantly in a state of flux and renewal.
