Q1 How did you start out making music?
It's difficult to consider a starting point, it would seem arbitrary. But certainly way back as a little nipper. My parents thought my older brother was going to be the musical one, with his interest in radio and tapes, but it turned out I was the one with natural musician capabilities. My brother introduced me to sound recording, on a ghetto blaster. We used to load it full of D-cell batteries and take it with us shopping on a Saturday, recording the hum of the car and whatever other background noises occurred, then eagerly listening back when we got home. I'm still not sure why I find this fascinating, but it hasn't left me. I've even taken a hefty analogue portable reel to reel and various cables and microphones on holiday to the Algarve with my girlfriend! It's an obsession. Going back to the childhood days, my brother taught me how to cut and paste with a twin cassette deck ghetto blaster, and then we discovered, together, a crude way of overdubbing and therefore multi-tracking. This is where I took off and ran with it. I had little equipment other than a cheap guitar and amp, a plastic karaoke mic and cassette decks. I blew up my mom's karaoke machine once using it as a guitar amp, I was slightly proud of that at the time. My first encounter playing music proper was probably when I was tall enough to reach the keys of my brother's Bontempi organ, which was on a keyboard stand in our shared room. I think I remember learning 'Silent Night' by ear - I was probably five or six.

Q2 What inspired the song 'Ambivalence Avenue'?
The lyrics were initially influenced by an experience I had when visiting London in 1999. My girlfriend and I were checking out universities before we moved there. I had an outlandish sensation travelling down an avenue (a road like the one on the front cover of the record) - it was a sort of daydream that left a strong impression on my mind. I can't explain the emotion, so I labelled it as 'ambivalence'. But it was powerful, strange, sad, happy, blissful and fearful all at the same time. The nature of this experience haunted me, and influenced my music. It was originally reflected in 'London Planes' on my debut 'Fi', but has now been more literally and explicitly expressed in 'Ambivalence Avenue'. I know other people experience these mystical feelings, and hopefully the music and the atmosphere in the track will evoke something for the listener, even if it is irrelevant to my lyrics. As far as music production goes, it was strongly influenced by Marcos Valle's album 'Previsao Do Tempo', I wanted it to sound like a lost South American 70s pop song, but with English lyrics, obviously. I don't speak Portuguese, unfortunately.

Q3 What process do you go through in creating an album?
It's different with each track. Beaty tracks may start off with me jamming something on an MPC, using vintage drum machine samples, drum sounds I've recorded myself or just household objects like dripping gravel into a watering can. Then I'll create a sequence, perhaps, and jam some guitar or bass over it, or maybe synth. When I stumble upon something I like, I'll record it into Logic and then the rest can snowball from there. As soon as the first melodies or chords are down, I'm pretty fluent in coming up with counterpoints or extra layers. That's often my favourite part of music making - multi-tracking. The ageing or saturating process to achieve a more textured and colourful sound may be achieved during or later on, using reel to reel recorders, cassettes, valves etc.

Q4 Which artists influence your work?
Too many to list. But the most important ones: Steve Reich, Boards of Canada, Marcos Valle, Incredible String Band, Nick Drake, J Dilla, Madlib, My Bloody Valentine, Sea and Cake, Joao Gilberto... and many more.

Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?
Nothing. That's what the music is for. If anything, lie down and put your headphones on and close your eyes.

Q6 What are your ambitions for 'Ambivalence Avenue', and for the future?
I'm just writing music constantly, no real direction, I just go with the flow and let my influences come naturally. If I make it too contrived, it'll suffer. The best music is the music without rules or preconceptions. If I have an idea beforehand, it'll be an aesthetic idea that cannot be translated into words, I can only communicate it by making the music. That's why I make music, it's partly trying to realise ambiguous ideas or just 'playing' with sound, intuitively learning how sound and technology behaves and organising it into something I think is beautiful, but simultaneously allowing chance to be a big part of it. As far as ambitions for 'Ambivalence Avenue', that's between me and Warp at the moment.