Dev Hynes Quotations

The issue I had with the Lightspeed albums was that usually the main purpose with them was to fulfil really dorky musical goals, like, 'I wonder if I can do that,' and it was all very personal. It was more that once I'd finished the goal of what the song was, I was kind of done. It was like ticking boxes.

'Chamalkay' is an old Guyanese slang word. It means a 'young mischievous girl.' It's not derogatory, but it isn't over complimentary, either. It was probably a word I just Googled one day, and the song kind of played into the feel of that.

I was 13 years old at music school talking to my teacher. I can't quite remember what it was I was trying to describe, but I do remember my music teacher saying to me, 'Do you have synesthesia?' In hindsight, it seems a little presumptuous of her to think a little boy in Essex would know what synesthesia was.

Yeah, I associate every sound with a color and vice versa.

I know a lot of people feel like they get eaten alive by New York, but I feel it more as a father figure or something - this huge presence watching over me. I definitely feel better and work freer here.

I'm pretty strict with videos, at least the imagery stuff.

Every day there's a lot of things I block out, because if I start visualising things, I tend to go completely insane. I've always had anxiety issues, and it can totally overwhelm me and suck me under if I'm not keeping focused. I just think and think until I have a panic attack, and then it dies down.

I like to blur the line between remix and cover version and new song.

I'm such a strong believer in making yourself happy. Almost in a selfish way. There are a lot of trends, and obviously you can get swept up into them. But I feel like if you just write songs you love, it can have trap beats in it or whatever's going on in the moment, but you don't stop loving songs.

I've been kind of listening to the composer Britten and his rendition of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream.' The opening track is a choral section where all the weird fairies, who are played by kids in the production, sing. It's a crazy opening melody and chord sequence - really amazing.

A lot of my friends were gay, so I was spat on on the bus daily, and I ended up in hospital a couple of times from being beaten up so badly.

I'm pretty much fully digital. I've basically spent a few painstaking days putting sounds into my laptop, just banking them, because I love playing, and I love visually seeing it on my screen and being able to change the sounds more, with different plug-ins. I've created my own synth sounds.

When I was recording music, I'd record all the parts myself, and I wouldn't let other people in; that's essentially what Blood Orange is the result of; me trying to find the most comfortable I can be with everything.

I don't really care about audio quality. If people saw some of the ways that I record stuff, they'd see I don't care in that respect. I obviously care about things sounding good, but I think quality exists through other things like emotionally connecting with a lyric or a feeling, or whatever.

Cello is my first instrument, then piano, drums, bass, violin, recorder, saxophone, but I'd never play them live!

I'm always weary of connotations. I don't want people to listen to the music I make presently because they liked my previous work, or to dismiss it because they didn't. I'm guilty of this as well - having preconceptions about other artists - but it's stupid because all music exists on its own and should be listened to with a clear head.

Everything I do, I build a kind of confidence net - 'I'm able to execute this; it's fine.'

If I like something, I then have to study every single aspect of it to find out if there's more things that I would like, and it's just this weird hunger to want more. I always feel like there's so much that exists.

I don't want to say I hate remixes, because I don't, but I hate what instantly comes to mind now when people say 'remixes.'

The way it works for me is my sight and sound senses are combined. Every sound I associate with a color and every color I associate with a sound... The way I see things is constant streamers across the room, bouncing off from every touch and every sound. Over the years, I've learned what color palates I love most.

I see no kind of reason to not just try everything. I mean, I feel like we all have such varied tastes, and to not just try our tastes is a crime.

It's funny because I think, as a general rule, that people seem to think that if you do lots of different things over the course of, like, a timeline, it means that you kind of disregard what you did before. But that's not true of me. I still genuinely like everything I did as much as I liked it when I released it.

Some people say I do it too much, but I'm always asking the artist questions. Sometimes - especially with new artists - you can see they're compromising in their mind. You see that look when they're listening to a vocal take and there's hesitation. And I'll be like, 'Are you sure you don't want to do this again?'

When I was asked to compose a score for... 'Palo Alto,' I first thought to myself, 'What is the house that these characters would want to live in?' I wanted to paint a picture and color scheme that I could work around. I gently apply different daubs to see what fits to match the color I have in mind with these characters.

Sometimes that's the only way I exist, talking to people through pop culture.

I approach every single thing I do as a fan. It's the only way I can do things. That way, I never let myself down.

I avoid falling into a trap of doing work solely to impress people. I always ask myself, "What don't I ever see?"

Personally, I always just want people to enjoy themselves and experience something that they wouldn't normally experience.

I try to take it as it comes. I'm constantly trying to please myself. That's why I've basically realised now, that nothing else in the world matters at all, just please yourself and the people you love and that's it.

Radio voices have a solid, even texture.