It was an eruption out of a pretty small neighbourhood, and the smallness was nice; it allowed us to attempt things and sometimes fail. The stakes were low.What kind of a place was David Byrne at during the making of Look into the Eyeball?Al Holroyd, London You know, after a while making records, you don’t know if one is better than the others at first. I think this is a pretty good one, if I can be immodest, but that is not something one senses when one is writing or making the record. Of course, with every record, I convince myself it’s a total work of genius while I’m working on it. All artists have huge egos in order to believe they have something that the world needs to hear or see – or they wouldn’t have the nerve to make it in the first place. That said, when I finished the record, I thought it was a total piece of crap and wanted to give it to Virgin and quickly hide under a rock and hope it all blew over.Are you still in contact with Tina and Chris? If so, any plans to collaborate?Tessa Blythe, PerthshireAre you kidding? After all the things they’ve said about me?What became of the big white suit?L K Parsons, LondonIt went on the Rock Style costume exhibition that was at the Met in New York and the Barbican in London. Now it’s back in storage.In reality, are you the angst-ridden, shy, retiring, socially crippled introvert you portray to the public and the music media?Michael Hodkinson, by e-mailYes, it’s been a pretty successful act so far, so I’m going to run with it.

Most people believe it, so why not?I understand that you dabbled a little in conceptual art. What piece are you a) most proud of, and b) most embarrassed by?Pete Knott, by e-mail Well, I still make conceptual art of a sort – so if you want to call it dabbling, that’s an English problem The music is probably dabbling as well It’s all dabbling But it’s serious and, I hope, pretty humorous dabbling. I have an art book of sorts coming out with Faber very soon, called New Sins – a little Bible sort of thing. It was originally placed anonymously in hotel drawers in Spain during a biennial over there. This is not so different from the sort of vaguely conceptual art I used to make in art school, all of it a futile attempt to disguise art as something else. Like secreting things inside pop songs, you might say.Rei Momo did a lot to spread the popularity of Brazilian music.

What do you think of the Buena Vista Social Club? Is this world-music thing just a commercial fad that comes and goes? Isla Whelan, by e-mail Rei Momo was more Latin than Brazilian, but it often got confused with the compilations we were putting out then on Luaka Bop. I quite like the Buena Vista record, but as a reflection of current Cuban music it’s a little misleading. Imagine all of the UK being represented by a skiffle group, and you get the idea. But I don’t think Nick Gold and Ry Cooder ever intended it to be this phenomenon – my understanding is, they were hoping to do an African/Cuban hybrid record at the time. And yes, all the music in the rest of the world is just a fad; they’ll get over it and realise that Oasis is the real thing soon enough.True Stories was a brilliant insight into Middle America.

Have you considered producing an update?Glyn Jenkins, Newcastle upon TyneThanks, but no. I try not to repeat myself – or, at least, I try not to do it in a way that people recognise. But I would like to direct another film – it’s more of an ego rush than anything else.Did you ever get into voodoo?Ronan Mills, by e-mail Yes, as an attendee, sympathiser and friend… not as a proper initiate.If you could work with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?Jill Hargreaves, Bude, CornwallI collaborate all the time… the arrangers on this record were all collaborators of a sort. I did a dance score about two years ago for a choreographer named Wim Vandekeybus, from Brussels; the piece was called In Spite of Wishing and Wanting It toured for about two years all over the world. I released a CD of that music but tried it over the internet, so you can see how successful that was.

So much for online marketing.Your album The Forest features songs with evocative titles such as “Kish”, “Asuka” and “Tula”. What do they actually mean?Nicholas E Gough, Swindon They’re all titles of Autechre CDs. Actually, they are all names of big cities, centres of their cultures, that no longer exist.A recurring theme in your songs is the tension between civilisation and nature, urban paranoia and freedom. With all your experience of native African and South American music, have you emerged with a vision of primitive man, and is he happy?T Maum, Colchester Are you implying that Southerners are more “primitive” that Northerners? Well, the South has a reputation for knowing how to live – the Italian sound crew in the last town just took a two-hour lunch break, and they hadn’t even begun to work! It’s bizarre to some of us, but on another level they realise that life is what it’s about, not progress, achievement and tension. But we had a show to do; there are limits!”I am slowly overcoming the racism that was instilled in me by society.” What does this mean? Have you succeeded yet?Lise Connor, by e-mail I feel it’s important to admit that I harbour some racist impulses.