I think I’m more attuned to a popular… I grew up watching MTV and listening to three-minute songs, and I also don’t like concerts that are too long. A concert can be seven hours and not be too long, but sometimes a concert is forty-five minutes and it’s too long, and you’re uncomfortable, like, “It ended fifteen minutes ago, why do you keep making sound?” Or those situations where someone is playing and they’re fading out and you have this feeling of, “Yeah, it’s ending, yes, now, definitely,” and then they start again and you say, “No!” [ Laughs ] For me, moving over an hour or so, it goes into a different territory where I lose my sense of form. And then it becomes more like the chord in space. Installation format is where I would go after an hour.

I guess it’s by some degree of my own satisfaction. It’s not numeric. For instance, I’m very proud of async , but in the 90s, I was making fake R&B, fake House music, and fake Hip-Hop music. I don’t like that. I’m not happy about it. I wish I could erase that time. Making film music is different. It’s for other people, not yourself. It is still my own music, but it’s for other people. My solo work is entirely for myself, so it’s judged by my own satisfaction and whether I have proceeded enough, if I have pushed myself to another level. That’s how I judge it.

I think that’s an instinct.

Luckily, I’ve had a lot of practice with that. At this point, it is my 15th year of doing music, which is kind of crazy. I remember the first record I turned in, and I was asking myself all the time if it was done or whatever. It was great, but in retrospect, when I listen to things or look back, I’m like, “I should have done this differently.” Things like, “This is mixed weirdly.” Those are the types of mistakes you don’t notice in the moment, but that’s how it has to happen. You have to be a little bullheaded about it, a little stubborn and delusional, so the vision just sort of happens.