"My mum was into Björk, and at the time I was just like, ahh it’s just my mum’s music, so I was listening at maybe teenage years, 13 or 14 but then really got into it at 18. Like, ‘Oh I get this, this is actually more me than I thought it was’. That whole album of Debut, ‘Human Behaviour-, production wise, content, just sound - when you hear them drums, they’re so gritty and cyclical. I think that was the main thing I was trying to get across with my album, that sound. Björk, I think is the master of that, whatever she does she creates a world in her own albums. So whether you listen to Debut, Vespertine, Vulnicura, Post - all of her records have an identical feeling when you listen to them and I'm like, ‘okay, I've stepped into Björk’s domain’. I don't know how she does it, but I was trying to do something like that with Dark Matter, like this is the sound. This record is very different to everything else and it’s got a sound that can make you feel something - feeling and emotion and response to sound and vibrations was something I was kind of going for with my record."

"I was obsessed with the video Spike Jonze made for the Björk song “It’s Oh So Quiet.” When I heard he had made a movie, I couldn’t wait to see it. I fell in love with the world he created and all the unusual rules that came with it. I was so on board and wanted to go wherever he and Charlie Kaufman wanted to take me. Watching this movie was the first time I became aware of Catherine Keener (I was slow to discover Walking and Talking). I could not take my eyes off her."

"Some of Dirty Projectors’ records were a little bit impenetrable, because Dave Longstreth obviously had some really crazy concepts. A whole record was about Don Henley. Then they moved into stuff that was still really innovative, but a lot easier to understand and enjoy, even if it had very eccentric meters and rhythms and melodies. I collaborated with Dirty Projectors on a couple songs for a charity record, and at our performance at Radio City Music Hall, I met Annie Clark [of St. Vincent], who I was a big fan of already. Then we crossed paths again at a show Björk did with Dirty Projectors at Housing Works [Bookstore in New York]. The Housing Works crew saw Annie and I enjoying the show, and they approached us about doing something together. The idea was that we would do it at the bookstore, which never happened. We certainly donated money to them, but by the time we did an album and tour together, it became a bigger thing than something we could do at Housing Works."

"I remember first hearing 'Xtal' - that is the sexiest ambient electronic song for me. I remember being in my first year of university in Brighton and moving away from home and being a bit lost and lonely in some ways, in this tiny little halls of residence room. This album, Ambient Works, was just constantly on my Walkman and I'd been exploring Björk, The Black Dog, Aphex Twin and Boards Of Canada, all this electronic music, this world that was opening up to me from the early to mid-nineties, which I was discovering it a bit later. I'd actually at that point bought a QY-70, which is a Yamaha sequencer - I remember reading Björk had written Debut on it and Tricky had one. Listening to Ambient Works, for the first time it seemed possible that I understood how those things were layered up - beats and beautiful little melodies and there was no singing on it, which for me at the time was great because I was very shy about singing. I remember just hearing that and then going to my QY and hearing little synth sounds that sounded similar. Although Aphex Twin's synth sounds were, in hindsight, put through loads of pedals - I can hear that he's got field recordings layered on top of stuff and probably synths he's made himself - but it made sense to me and encouraged me to go and make my own ambient songs. I remember meeting Aphex Twin around that time at a Björk Vespertine concert. I'd met him once before and I went up to him with my MiniDisc player, which I used to put things I'd produced on, and I played him a song at the bar. I kind of knew him at the time a little bit by face, I think we'd met at some nights he was doing at a warehouse in London and me and my boyfriend at the time liked dancing and going out, and I played it to him and he said: ""I think it's really good. The production's quite good for a girl"". [laughs] That's what he said to me! I didn't take it as a bad thing. I was just like, ""cool"". I mean, Aphex Twin liked my production skills, so whether I'm a girl or not, it's fine. But I just remember thinking how funny that was - but I took it like ""that's a real stamp of approval for me"". I do think he's been a really pivotal figure and an important person in my life, because he does electronic music and it's really sexy and emotional. It wasn't cold like some of the other people, like Stockhausen, but I felt like he understood the dance movement and got the loved-up aspect to ambient music. There's a darkness to it, and a light, but a real twisted, disgustingness in what he does, like 'Come To Daddy' and 'Windowlicker', this rank Englishness, [adopts croaky drawl] ""come to daddddyyyy!"", all that weird shit. He's got a sense of humour and just seems to be one of the modern day composers of our time that understood emotionalism in electronic music. Dirty, disgustingness and kind of surreal, how to fuck with your mind, and his body of work is huge. So, yeah, I think he's a dude."

"Léon. Or, as it’s known in the United States, The Professional. But in France it’s called Léon. It’s so weird because for years I’d always called it The Professional and then for some reason it switched in my mind. I mean, that movie was an amazing blend of an international eye within the context of an American… That movie still feels extremely international, certainly with its lead actor but also the way that it was shot and made. But at the heart of that film is this incredible relationship between a cold blooded killer and a young girl. And it’s still so effective and so powerful. I think one of my favorite sequences in the film was when the two of them are kind of like, it’s like this beautiful montage of their relationship as they’re, like, cleaning the apartment and these sort of things that they’re doing together, this really adorable, emotional relationship. And it’s all cut to “Venus as a Boy” by Björk. It’s such a great sequence and there’s such whimsy to their connection. And of course the movie goes into a really dark and awfully sort of tragic place, you know, and it’s really about a man whose sole purpose in life is to be cold and calculated, but it’s all about this girl finding his humanity. It’s just such a beautiful film."

"I was probably about 17 [when I first heard it] and this one for me is very much about falling in love. I didn't realise for ages how much it must have influenced me because of the phasey synths, the layers of phasey guitar, the romance and the gloominess and depression, but within that depression there's always those bursts of euphoria and that sad/happy line. In music I tend to really enjoy the sad/happy dichotomy; they've been put together and it breaks your heart but you love it at the same time. You want to cry but you want to smile, and I think really hearing phasey guitars, massive intros, really lush, long droning synths, and Robert Smith for me, on 'Lullaby', it's just such great storytelling: "Quietly he laughs and shaking his head / Creeps closer now, closer to the foot of the bed". It's just like weird, dark, gothic literature or weird Roald Dahl stories or kids' stories about adult anxiety but told through Charlotte's Web-like fables and storytelling. 'Untitled' has harmonium and stuff and then it kicks into massively reverby drums, quite shoegazy, and 'Disintegration' is such a great song, I absolutely love it, and there's loads of really long intros where he just sings at the end and when you hear him yelping, "yeeeeah!". I felt like him and Björk at the time were both really exploring feral, expressive vocal sounds - and I think Robert Smith is a really underrated vocalist, not even underrated but I think he's like [mimics Robert Smith] and it's really free and endearing, just very unique I think."