One very early influence was reading about John Cage's experience in an anechoic room where the only sound you are left with is the high-pitched drone of your nervous system.
I think I have a sound or a certain feel in certain harmonies in the way I construct melodies.
Silence can be very effective, and it gives the music space to breathe.
For me, 'Blade Runner' is one of the big influences in my life - I saw it when I was 13 or 14, when it first came out, and since, I've seen it many, many times.
That's one of the hardest parts of putting together an album - finding that concept, that unifying idea. Especially as I write mostly in instrumental music, the idea of having a central concept that unifies the music is very important to me.
Public speaking is something I fear more than death itself.
Music has to be treated in the same way as set design, casting, or choice of location - it has to start at the same time.
Give the composer time to experiment, time to try out ideas. Also, the time to fail. When the composer has very little time, the temptation is to reach for stock ideas - ideas they know will work and have worked in the past.
I'm fascinated by the ruins and remains of industrialisation.
In this post-industrial society, when we're moving away from what was the norm, we have to deal with what it has left in its wake in terms of the impact on people and the environment.
Brass bands are part of my upbringing. Brass band records were among the first records I listened to.
I am a trombone player, and that was my first instrument.
I had three older sisters whose record collections I borrowed, so I was listening to The Velvet Underground as well as Bach and brass band music.
Very early on, I started improvising. I was more interested in the music that came out of me than any music I heard.
Sometimes you write music to a script or while a film is being edited. Sometimes I write without seeing any images, but that's rare. The approach is often based on practical decisions, but I'm interested in the narrative and physical space that music can occupy in a film or play.
Brass has a very distinctive sound. It's delicate but powerful, but it's also melancholic and plaintive.
I've never been very good at creating absolute music, which has no non-musical dimension to it. I think that is why filmmakers gravitated toward my work.
'End of Summer' expands the way I want to express myself as a composer. It's a piece of visual music that has this narrative and conceptual dimension to it.
I've been sort of playing music since I was probably 8 years old or something like that.
Even when I was studying piano, I always preferred to play around with my own improvisations rather than do my studies. So I've always been interested in writing music from a very early age.
