Jason Moran Quotes

I always like to say that the music I'd like to make is somewhere between Pan Sonic and Scott Walker. But I don't sing anything like Scott Walker.

The Geezer album, Black Science, had a lot of keyboards and it did not work.

I'm into heavy duty, psychedelic, foreign music. That's what I like listening to.

Musicians like James Blake were a big influence on me. How he uses his vocals is amazing. And then Yeasayer and Animal Collective, who aren't pop bands exactly, but they do something that is so catchy and undeniable and so much fun.

I was doing the Klaus Schulze noise-kid thing before it became interesting to people.

I'm jamming 'Black Sabbath Vol. 4' all the time. Zappa's 'Cruising With Ruben & The Jets.' A lot of Gong lately. Some Hawkwind. The Residents' 'Duck Stab' is amazing. Some Fugs. Lots of stuff, man. I'm pretty schizophrenic with records.

Even back when I played 'straight-ahead,' I mixed it up. I played some free-form, classical adaptations, solo flute stuff. It was New Age in its own way.

I am a massive fan of early electronica like Steve Reich, Pat Metheny and Thomas Dolby. I used to be a big raver, too, so anything dance. I love ambient music like Tunng. I love acoustic and classical, too.

I can't think of any musician or producer who has influenced me more than Brian Eno. From when he was in Roxy Music, producing Devo, the Talking Heads and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.

Prince turned experimental music into pop music. 'When Doves Cry,' the whole 'Purple Rain' soundtrack - he was inspired by the Cocteau Twins and new wave pop and brought it into R&B when he first started, and then it became this cool, next-level, kind of hard-to-digest music. Which is what I felt 'House of Balloons' was.

The first artist that did it for me with just production was James Blake... I was just blown away... I feel like James Blake kind of was the one that introduced me into that world.

At the time, 'Oxygene' was considered a totally 'far out' concept... What was 'in' at the time was disco, hard-rock, and the early days of punk... and moreover, 'Oxygene' was instrumental. And I was French!

The 11-minute 'Colouring of Pigeons' takes The Knife's experimental, cerebral side to new heights.

I guess you could call my music progressive, pop, rock.

I've been listening to a lot of music by Arca.

I want to do a darker, pop soul kind of feel.

Brian Eno and Robert Fripp's foray into some artful excursions into some ethereal electric experiments. There was a lot curious activities emerging in London, Amsterdam, and Berlin back then developing some fiercely fuzzy of synth-like effects way outside the norm which really blew the lid off things.

It's no longer unusual for real avant-garde composers to have been in a band, and for bands to be interested in a wide range of music. Look at how artists like Aphex Twin are influenced by Nancarrow and Stockhausen.

But I mean, again, Zappa's far more musical than the Bonzos ever were.

With guitar, I'd always mixed more sounds that occur in hip-hop, or occur on Crystal Method records, or occur at the zoo - so I've never been sort of tethered or have limited myself to the traditional rock n' roll vocabulary.

PC Music is a really post-modern attempt at pop.

I think with me and the type of music that I'm trying to make, it's always going be soulful because I grew up listening to different types and variations of soulful melodies and jazz, but experimenting with different types of stylistic souls.

I find myself listening to Blood Orange and Janelle Monae and artists like that.

A lot of my favourite songs have Eno involved, but I love the work he does on the first two Roxy Music albums. He's creating atmospheres as opposed to composition, and it's a beautiful mixture with everything else in that band.

I'm a huge fan of Flying Lotus. I like The XX's stuff.