I tend to work in layers. There's a huge orchestra in the film, but I also record a lot things with very intimate groups, and I like to be able to use the textures of those intimate groups.

A lot of the music editing job is communication and working out what a director really wants the music to be.

I worry about technical details - did I mix the cello half a decibel too high? Things like that.

I like taking my leads from what I see rather than trying to impose. I like that way of looking at things and seeing what's on screen and seeing how I can draw music out of it almost.

In the mid-2000s, I kind of accidentally became a music editor.

I like expansive stuff that has a lot of space in it, like some of the early Pink Floyd albums.

I'm a guitarist by background. That's what I used to do for sessions when I was younger and that sort of thing. We have several pianos in the house and I tend to just sit and fiddle around.

It's a funny thing with the inspiration thing. There's always loads of music around that I absolutely love and films going back to when I started making film music in the mid-80's.

For me, I work very self-contained. It's literally just me sitting in a room doing it until the very end of the process when other musicians come in and instruments are recorded.

I think after everything in the whole process of filmmaking, temp scores are great if you use them for what they're good for, if you use them for that early stage of support for things.

A lot of composers I know hate temp scores because people get attached to them.

At the heart of nature’s mystery lies another mystery.

There is an unreasonable joy to be had from the observation of small birds going about their bright, oblivious business

For years I felt that I wasn't ready to take on slavery. It's a huge topic, and I didn't want to mess it up.

I'm not perfect in my walk but I want to do the right thing.

I want my fans to know I'm there for them. I want them to see every part of me. I am never going to leave them.

My rule is: the second you find yourself doing something you hate, quit doing it.

Some boats are rotten in the ports; some boats shine in the hard journeys!

It is grindingly, creakingly, crashingly obvious that if Darwinism was really a theory of chance, it could not work.

The shortest way out of Manchester is notoriously a bottle of Gordon's gin.

Fashion comes and goes, but style is eternal.