"Sheer terror and sheer poetry, but both stem from distinctive medieval traditions. Häxan is the filmic equivalent of a hellish engraving by Bruegel or a painting by Bosch. It’s a strangely titillating record of sin and perversity that is as full of dread as it is of desire and atheistic conviction, and a condemnation of superstition that is morbidly in love with its subject. Vampyr is, strictly speaking, a memento mori, a stern reminder of death as the threshold of spiritual liberation. Like any memento mori, the film enthrones the right morbid imagery (skull, scythe, white limbo) in order to maximize the impact of the beautiful, almost intangible images that conclude it. If only Criterion had acquired my commentary track—sigh—from the UK edition."

"Sheer terror and sheer poetry, but both stem from distinctive medieval traditions. Häxan is the filmic equivalent of a hellish engraving by Bruegel or a painting by Bosch. It’s a strangely titillating record of sin and perversity that is as full of dread as it is of desire and atheistic conviction, and a condemnation of superstition that is morbidly in love with its subject. Vampyr is, strictly speaking, a memento mori, a stern reminder of death as the threshold of spiritual liberation. Like any memento mori, the film enthrones the right morbid imagery (skull, scythe, white limbo) in order to maximize the impact of the beautiful, almost intangible images that conclude it. If only Criterion had acquired my commentary track—sigh—from the UK edition."

"Not actually a “spiritual” work at all (if only someone could define terms like that for me), this is the first truly great film about institutional oppression (forget the Soviets’ chockablock puppeteering and jigsaw manipulations), a subject that always manages to give a film with this much passionate force pertinence in virtually any age and political climate. It took me years to realize—and this is all the props George Lucas will get from me at this late date—that Dreyer’s film is in fact an abstracted dystopian horror film, a point Lucas made by remaking it as THX 1138, right down to the shaved skulls, white-on-white compositions, inarticulate victim protagonist, looming totalitarian machinations, and semihopeless action finale."

"All of his albums are just collections of songs because this was in the pre-album era, but I guess there was one in Mississippi called Key To The Kingdom. He was a spiritual blues singer who played an instrument, a fretless zither. Even though it's the blues era, he can't bend the notes like a guitar player would. He's sometimes known as George Washington Phillips. His music is really serene and otherworldly and pure. It's all very religious but it has its own atmosphere that I've not really heard anywhere else. I think when I really got into Washington Philips was when Sonic Boom put a song of his onto a compilation album called Space Lines. My sister painted a picture of him for Christmas. My sister the painting goth."

"I was raised Catholic and I still consider myself a fairly spiritual person even though I have a hard time identifying with most Christians in this country. But I still maintain a belief in God and in Jesus, and that gets tried on a daily basis. The older I get, the wiser I get, the tougher it is to believe in a divine power or whatnot. So that movie appeals to me on that level alone. To take it beyond, it’s just a fantastic Martin Scorsese picture. Great performances in it. The first portrayal of Christ where I was, “Wow, this might be what it was like.” He wasn’t a guy of all beatitude and perfection. He was a man, first and foremost, who just happened to be the son of God."

"This song is from one of the Éthiopiques compilations and I really got really into them a few years ago. I was touring around Southern France and Spain and I remember listening to that music for the first time and seeing the beautiful landscape out the window. There’s just so much emotion and feeling in his playing and it really made me want to have saxophone on the record. “It's interesting sometimes with instrumental music, how it can almost make you feel more than a good lyric will make you feel. It provokes something that touches you on an almost spiritual level. I think that's the goal as a musician - whether it's instrumental or it has lyrics, you're always trying to touch someone in a really deep way; you want to try to get at the core of somebody."