"I love a lot of Bernard Hermann’s work, but his soundtrack to Taxi Driver is really extraordinary. I actually watched the movie for the first time very recently, during the past year, and I was struck by how brilliant the music was. “The way that it changes from being something that’s so threatening and dark to being very melodic and lovely always surprises me, which I guess represents the protagonist’s mind. The idea of ugliness and beauty – and how it can shift very quickly, going back and forth – is another thing that I wanted to explore on the new record. I found this one to be very inspiring."

"I first saw this film in my early 20s, while on a month-long nannying job in Pittsburgh. Having my nights free, I watched movies to while away the time. This movie descended upon me like an intoxicating cloud of nostalgia and bittersweet regret. Paul Newman‘s soul-crushing beauty, Piper Laurie‘s frank intelligence, George C. Scott‘s lizard-like alertness — this was the powerhouse cast of my dreams. While ostensibly a showdown between two very different pool players — Jackie Gleason‘s seasoned veteran, Newman’s distracted con-man — it’s ultimately a searing portrait of ambition run amok and the failure of the American Dream to deliver on its many promises."

"My dad introduced me to cinema when I was a kid, to watch old films and foreign films, and so I think I was just touched by the idea of a young kid getting to know the projectionist in a village and falling in love with the world of cinema. I kind of related to that. And then I related to the idea of a kid’s passion for movies and eventually getting out and making movies himself. I like the idea of that. And the pacing of the film, and the beauty of the cinematography, and the relationship between the boy and the projectionist is very, very sweet and very touching."

"I love altered tunings, and guitarists who use them like Michael Chapman, whose Train Songs album was great. To me, this is like a lost film soundtrack, full of soft beauty, powered by this overdriven electric guitar against found sounds and synths. It makes me think of this trip I did to the Joshua Tree National Park: I hadn't known what was there, and I'd thought the Joshua Tree was just one tree! But walking in the high sierra, the quietest place I'd ever been, the idea of cars, planes, city noise, feeling so far away…there was this silence. This reminds me of that.
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"Let’s start with the most modern one, I suppose. La Grande Bellezza [aka] The Great Beauty. Paolo Sorrentino‘s movie. There’s a million different reasons. I think it’s the elegance of Toni Servillo‘s character. I think he’s almost like Dante going through the three stages of Paradiso, Inferno, Purgatorio. I used to live in Rome, so it’s a beautiful imagination of what Rome is. It’s the furious bacchanal element of the night life. The overzealous, religious conservatism of the daytime. It’s so beautifully done, and it’s elegant and dangerous. It’s intellectual. And buffoonish in all in the same breath. It’s an incredible movie. He’s a wonderful director."