On writing songs: "Often it starts with a vocal melody, sometimes a drum beat, or even a sound texture. I usually write the lyrics afterwards, when I'm walking around – you listen to the song and slowly build on it. I edit a lot. Writing a song is a bit like putting together a puzzle."
On her album Stridulum II: "I noticed they were all love songs. I wanted them to be empathetic and compassionate. I had friends and people around me that were going through a lot of hard times, broken hearts. My grandfather died as I was writing the record, and I had just got into a really intense relationship with someone who is now my husband. I Can't Stand is the most literal. I wrote that song to try to console people around me, then I sent it to them, and said: 'Look, this is what I'm trying to say.'"
On favourite lyricists: "I love Nick Cave. He's a poet, he says things with such clarity, articulacy and beauty. I love everything he's done, from the Boys Next Door and the Birthday Party to the Bad Seeds and Grinderman."
On finding her voice: "With [2008 album] The Spoils, I didn't really have a deadline, so I had more time to write intros and outros, and it became like an opus. But lyrically, at the time, I didn't feel like I had anything worth saying to anyone. Words weren't important to me, nor was my voice. I felt like I might as well have been speaking a made-up language. Stridulum was the opposite. It was done in such a short space of time – I couldn't do anything extra to it, it was just verse, chorus, verse, chorus, end of song. But I also wanted it to be primitive – to speak about emotions in layman's terms."
On audience misunderstandings: "I notice that when I play Sea Talk, people often hold their loved ones, swaying back and forth. They don't realise it's actually a song about falling out of love. But you know, people make out to that one, it's weird."
On the perfect song: "The perfect song is one that makes you feel like your whole body is going to collapse when you listen to it. A Change Is Gonna Come by Sam Cooke. Crying by Roy Orbison. Both of those are perfect songs, with a huge amount of emotion. When you listen to them, it makes your heart hurt. They take you out of the world, it's such a surreal feeling that I can't even explain. Have I ever come close to writing the perfect song? No. That's when you stop making music. But every time I sit down to write, I try to write that song. I haven't ever come close, but one day I hope I will."
