"One of the nice things about being on EMI at the beginning of the 80s was they basically let you come in and get as many records as you liked. So I got an awful lot of classical records and worked my way through them. There's only so many things on the contemporary catalogue that were that interesting. You could get a Wire record. You could get this and that, but a lot of that stuff wasn't that interesting. Obviously, being a requiem, this is music for the dead. It's late 19th century, incredibly dynamic. I guess you'd say post-Beethoven, but more romantic, quite emotional. It goes from very, very simple, quiet, plain solo voice and it builds into this huge thing. It draws you in and completely absorbs you. It's like sailing on the sea. There are quiet bits where everything's still and then some storm comes and everything breaks into a furious tempest. It's something that I've been listening to for 30 years. It's something that I'll often play when I'm going to bed, weirdly."

"This is a record I had when I was a younger man and I stumbled back onto it. I love every song on it. I love his melodies. I love his surrealist point of view. He was really in love with language and melody. [sings] “My wife and my dead wife, did anyone ever see her?” He knows he’s getting your attention. He’s very entertaining. [sings] “I’m the man with the lightbulb head!” He’s got me man! He had me with the song titles alone. It has this one 80s poppy number. ['Heaven'] (sings) “She’s got heaven, heaven in her eyes.” He doesn’t sound groundbreaking lyrically up to that point. He gets to the resolve: “She’s got arms, she’s got legs, she’s got heaven.” It’s like the object of affection in the song is being dismembered. He’s not expressing his own sexual drive. He’s not saying it how Rod Stewart would say it. [At this point he unleashes a Rod Stewart howl.] Hitchcock’s poetry bubbles out of him like Lewis Carrol. It doesn’t have to make sense."

"A little known '80s band from New York City. They were pretty much unknown to anyone outside of there, too. They used just two basses, a violin and a synth. No drums. They used a little bit of drumming on this album but live they had none at all. That was something which was quite central to The Light In You, where nearly all the songs have two basses going all the time. We grew up with Hugo Largo, we recorded with them and they actually got us our first recording studio gig back in '87. Another band heavily influential to Mercury Rev, very early on. I put it up there with some of the most beautiful, hypnotic music that a number of bands would point to these days. I think Brian Eno released this and had Drum been released or even re-released today, it probably would have had a much larger audience; if Drum was released today it would be album of the year, no question."