"That was one of the 50 albums my mum played all the time when I was a little kid - that is just so deep in my subconscious that I can't even describe what it is I feel when I hear her singing. I remember coming back from college and playing some Laura Branigan for Chris Keating or some friend and them just thinking it was second rate Donna Summer, which it probably is. But I'm like, "Don't you hear the emotion in her voice - it sounds like she's crying!" That was the kind of over the top but still sincere genuine passion I wanted to get on 'Hold You Tight' from the musical. All the reviews of the musical are very critical of this one song, which is probably one of my favourite songs, because it actually sounds like it could be from a musical. It's very Broadway and not very indie rock at all, and I kind of wish we'd been a little less conservative in just going for it. 'Self control' is a timeless theme. Keep it under control in the day and let loose at night."

"I was one of those kids who had never seen an indie film before I got to college. If it wasn’t a big, huge tentpole movie, or if it wasn’t on the radio, I hadn’t experienced it. Then in college I started getting into independent movies, which led me to classic movies, which led me to all this different stuff. The 1970s movies, for me, were only discovered, unfortunately, as little as six or seven years ago. So Kramer vs. Kramer. Some of the greatest writing I’ve ever seen, some of the gutsiest performances. It’s just so quintessential of what the 1970s were for me. There’s just this unfiltered, raw energy, and despite how beautiful that movie is — and obviously, it’s a well done movie — the fact [is] that they’re not making movies like that anymore. [Kramer vs. Kramer is about] a horrible relationship. It’s a really tough situation for the father to be in, and yet [for] everyone who went and saw the movie, there was this weird understanding or commiseration with anger. I think people might have been angrier, or willing to see angry movies."

"This is track two on Beck’s Morning Phase, his ninth studio record, which I discovered after touring Radlands around America three times. I’d always appreciated Beck from a distance, but I never had an emotional connection to his music. I loved “Loser” and it was fun to spin him at an indie disco, but I didn’t have that real relationship with his music. But when this came out it blew my mind; it was such an incredible record. “It was written and recorded as a counterpart to Sea Change, his previous record. It used a lot of the same musicians and it was recorded in Nashville. It has that real blissed out, opioid induced country music feel to it - very floaty. To me, it really felt like it was his mid-life crisis record, the musical version of him buying a Bugatti and running off with his secretary. “Just like with King Crimson and Cass McCombs, Beck’s Morning Phase completely influenced Curve of the Earth and it gave us the sonic blueprint for that record. The blueprint was this woozy, washed out, ethereal, very spacious, widescreen feel. There are tinges of country there, but it’s more of a headphone stoner record."