"When I heard Elizabeth Fraser for the first time, first of all I was so excited that they were based in Scotland and hearing her sing felt like I was in touch with alien life [laughs]. I heard it and I didn't even understand what she was saying but I could feel what she's saying. It was so emotive and so extraordinary. I felt like every time I listened – and I still have the same reaction – when I listen to these records I feel like I'm literally being transported in angel wings. I find it euphoric to listen to and nobody's ever sounded like her before. She's totally unique and just this extraordinary talent. 
 Funnily enough, I once met her at a Nick Cave concert in Edinburgh. She was there and I was just so in awe of this incredible woman – I also loved that she was so shy and so unassuming. She wasn't really a front person, more of an instrument using her voice. 
 I'm not a religious person, but I always think it's like music from the Gods. It's not of this world. I want them played at my funeral. I always say that to my husband: 'Play the Cocteau Twins all the way through my funeral, that's all I want' [laughs]."

"I think one of the things I like about this record, and most of the records I've chosen, is that it has a real self-contained universe about it. When you listen you don't imagine they've done that, or what have they done there, it just seems completely in its own world and self-existing. It's a really psychedelic and strange record, but it's also a lot of fun… a theme that won't run through most of the albums I've chosen. Hahaha."

"The best voice. Even against Leonard Cohen’s, Bowie’s, or whoever’s – Frank Sinatra’s is the best voice. My favourite was the period in the Sixties when his voice was just unbelievable. The only thing with Frank is you sometimes think he is just standing there and all he’s thinking about is shagging someone straight afterwards. It’s that good – it’s like he’s taking the piss. Did he mean it? I can’t see how he could, cos he’s thinking “I am going to fuck off to Rio de Janeiro like it says in one of these songs” or “I’m gonna shag someone absolutely beautiful and then I’m gonna get pissed.” That is sometimes what I hear, and you can’t be that good. It’s like he’s written the words, but that’s another thing, to be able to do that with the words – which were generally brilliant in those days, lyrics have gone by the wayside these days, it’s generally Les Miserables crap now. I’m sure Sinatra would have puked up had he heard my man Michael Ball strangle the fucking life out of things. I love Michael Ball just because he’s so crap, but when he’s on telly he fluctuates in weight, so sometimes you think: who the fuck’s that? He turns into that Doctor Who bloke, Colin Baker. He’s dead funny in interviews and you have to have one of them on the telly, and it was either him or Bono, and I decided he’s the one."

"For me, Blade Runner is the best science-fiction film ever made. Although I did just speak to StarWars.com the other day, and Star Wars was the best science-fiction film ever made. Blade Runner, for me, was the most fully realised world. Sometimes you see films, not just science fiction films, where you get the sense that if the camera were to pan just to the left or the right all of a sudden you’d be seeing light stands and crew standing around. But with Blade Runner, the beauty of it is that it felt like a real, breathing city. Science-fiction cities in general, I think, are so hard to get right, because it’s so easy to just play some cheesy music or do something that takes you right out of it, but Blade Runner got it right, and I love that about the film. It’s a great film as well, the performances are all amazing, Rutger Hauer is incredible in it. He’s never been as cool and sexy in anything since. Harrison Ford is grim and just a great protagonist. It’s just a brilliant sexy film. The sense that there is a real world beyond the frame of the camera is something that I want to do with my next film Mute, that’s going to be very much my love letter to Blade Runner. It’s a future Berlin thriller, and it’s exactly that element of Blade Runner that I want to capture in my film."