Splendid: How heavily influenced are you by gospel and soul? If you could be limited to listening to just a few gospel/soul artists, who would they be -- Irma Thomas? James Brown? Mahalia Jackson...?

Dickon Hinchcliffe: We've always listened to Soul music but this influence has become more easily recognized on our last two albums. The best as far as I'm concerned was Curtis Mayfield -- powerful lyrics, inspired arrangements and a beautiful voice.

Splendid: What's your link with Claire Denis? Trouble Every Day was your second time working with her; how did you come to work together again? How did you find each other the first time?

Dickon Hinchcliffe: The first film we did music for was Nenette et Boni by Claire Denis. She got us back to do Trouble... We seemed a "natural" choice for it! She wrote Nenette et Boni while listening to our second album and came to one of our gigs in Paris and asked if we'd do the music for that film.

Splendid: Now that you're done with both projects, did you have a favorite? Nenette et Boni or Trouble Every Day? Which was more taxing to work on, and did either one present particular challenges?

Dickon Hinchcliffe: They were very different films and our approach reflected this. N and B we did as a band -- jamming and playing around with lots of ideas, old and new, which we combined with material Claire liked from our second album. The material was quite easy and relaxed and seemed to work with the rhythm and mood of the film, whereas Trouble asked for something very powerful, focused and disturbed. This was based around the title song, a version of which we'd played a couple of years before. Rather than the intimate band sound, I arranged our ideas for orchestra -- strings, harp and brass.

Splendid: Several years ago, the Smithsonian commissioned a number of artists to create pieces of art limited to the theme of blue guitars. In no other way was their creativity limited, and although all the artists followed that thematic limitation, the variety of the pieces and the thought in the concepts behind them was astonishingly wide. Do you find that writing for a set theme in movies is similarly liberating in its limitations, or do you get something entirely different out of writing for movies?

Dickon Hinchcliffe: It is good sometimes to be given boundaries/limits. When we write our own albums it is our vision. With film you are responding to somebody else's vision and we try to be sensitive to that while bringing something completely new and different to it. This process of interaction between music and the visual takes you where you could never have gone without it.

Splendid: Did you find it at all emotionally draining to write for a subject as charged as the theme in Trouble Every Day? How do you create soundscapes for "vampirisme"?

Dickon Hinchcliffe: For me, Trouble... is about the limits of desire. As Claire says, it is about when a kiss becomes a bite. It was not hard to write music for this as it feels like something very tangible and real -- part of "everyday life". Perhaps our music exists in a similar way. Intensity, desire, danger and the domestic all at once. Writing for the violent scenes was the most difficult. Music can unwittingly cheapen, glorify or nullify violence. But it can also intensify it, and this is what we attempted to do.

Splendid: Were you able to see the movie at all before you began writing, or did you write it in the studio as you watched? If the former, did you get to read the script first?

Dickon Hinchcliffe: Claire has always given us scripts, rushes and early edits as she works. This allows us to create slowly and be involved in the film as it develops.

Splendid: Why were you drawn to work on Trouble Every Day? Was it "Cool, another chance to work with Claire," or was it a combination of that and the subject, or something else again?

Dickon Hinchcliffe: It was all these things. We like challenges and this was totally different to N and B and gave us the opportunity to express ourselves in relation to visual images again.

Splendid: Did you find it easier to work on Trouble Every Day because you'd worked with the director before, or did it not make a difference?

Dickon Hinchcliffe: Yes, it was easier because we knew Claire and how she liked to work and her ways of communication. Also, she knew us!

Splendid: D'you think you'd like working with other directors, too? Or is it just 'cos you're friends with Claire Denis?

Dickon Hinchcliffe: With Claire we would only work with her if we felt we could bring something to her films. We would never do it out of habit. It would be the same with any director.

Splendid: Have you ever seen another movie you really wished you scored?

Dickon Hinchcliffe: The ones I wished I'd scored tend to already have great music! That is why I like them.

Splendid: The score for Trouble Every Day was universally praised, but generally people said things about "despite the fact that only one song was sung". Was there a set reason behind only one song having vocals (and the rest being instrumental)?

Dickon Hinchcliffe: We wanted the soundtrack to be stark and uncompromising -- it didn't seem to want much in the way of lyrics/voices: the title song is powerful enough on its own.

Splendid: How did you prepare for a career in music? You're all generally gifted working as an ensemble with a wide variety of instruments, and comfortable with working with an orchestra. Not as many pop musicians seem as classically trained; do you find yourself something of an rarity in the pop world?

Dickon Hinchcliffe: I'm the only one with any classical training and this was only as a child. I then played in bands and then started doing orchestral arrangements with Tindersticks. I'm a great believer in self education and practical experience in this regard. In other words, you don't have to get a music degree to be able to score for orchestras. The most important things are imagination, attitude, intensity and to be a good listener. You can learn the theory and techniques (Henry Mancini wrote a great book on arranging) but you can't learn imagination...

Splendid: You've been together for ten years; few bands manage to stay together that long, with so few changes in the lineup. What's more, you've moved some distance from each other. How do you stay connected? "Can your love" grow any further?

Dickon Hinchcliffe: We have a strong bond between us that can't be explained. Something strange but very powerful that comes out in our music. This is what has kept us together.

Splendid: You couldn't make it to the States in fall 2001 for your planned tour. Was it just scheduling problems (you were touring heavily then), or worries over traveling here post-9/11?

Dickon Hinchcliffe: Money was the problem -- it costs a lot for us to tour in USA and in the light of September 11th, people weren't keen to come up with the funding.

Splendid: Are you more interested in painting emotional colors with your songs, in asking questions, or in providing answers (or none of those options)?

Dickon Hinchcliffe: We never provide answers. Only questions and different states...

Splendid: Most of Can Our Love seems to focus on love's sustenance, rather than surviving love's loss, or its absence. It's certainly more mature subject matter than you find in some pop songs. Do you find yourselves getting more mellow as you write more albums? What changes in your songwriting (texture, your sense of humour) have you noticed that please you most?

Dickon Hinchcliffe: Songs reflect our changing lives -- getting older is part of that.

Splendid: Dumb question: why donkeys?

Dickon Hinchcliffe: Stuart (Staples) has a thing about them.