"In the recent documentary Gerhard Richter Painting, the painter speaks at length about being a young artist emerging in post–World War II Germany. He says that he always considered painting to be nothing more than a trade that one dedicates oneself to day after day. Working is, above all, very respectable. Perhaps this attitude can be attributed to the fact that postwar Germans were faced with the arduous (but perhaps liberating) task of writing a new history for themselves—trying to come to terms with the past while simultaneously looking toward the future and the endless possibilities therein. With such daunting business at hand, a workhorse spirit would be a must for all German artists. Fassbinder most definitely had that spirit, leaving behind forty feature-length films and playing countless other roles over the course of his short career. Lola alludes to some of these particular pressures and concerns. Lola herself is a woman with a troubled past pressing forward with her life. It is a great, classic story, and a lot can be read into it. But on a purely aesthetic level, Lola is a sumptuous visual journey. So many textures and colors . . . if Zéro de conduite is a Dadaist masterpiece and The Scarlet Empress is expressionism on film, Lola is pure Technicolor pop art, and one of the best late Fassbinder films. Coincidentally, Rainer Werner Fassbinder died the day before I was born."

"Somebody gave it to me in the late nineties, just on a blank cassette and then yep, I was completely dubious, because when people mention Miles Davis or jazz in general, I would just think of those crazy funk-jazz things they did in the seventies, and I didn't know he was capable of this incredible orchestral soundscape. It helps that he's reading from an already fantastic piece of music but what he did to it was astonishing again, so I love it. It's just the most evocative record. Recently I had the pleasure of a train journey from Bilbao to Madrid and I put that on my headphones and it was like, "oh yeah, everything is cool". Actually, it didn't [unveil new layers to the record], as I think it was really cool to experience it on the train going through Spain and yet I always think that music is so powerful that the images that you have in your head if you're listening to it in your bedroom are as powerful, if not more so, than if you were in some incredible vista. After that I went back and bought the early Blue Note records, which are generally brilliant. I'm not a real jazz aficionado and if I've put on an old jazz record, it's mostly about mood, because I can't really understand what's going on. Whereas with Sketches Of Spain, it seems more orchestral, where I can understand what's going on better."