"I think I came across this record because it was produced by Dave Fridmann and I was interested in him at the time because of other stuff he’d done, particularly The Flaming Lips. I heard this record and asked other people about it and they were saying, 'Aren’t they kind of folksy?' And I was like, 'No! What? Have you not listened to them?' Because this album does have that quiet, acoustic thing at the heart of it, but Fridmann has produced it like In Utero or something. Almost all of the instruments are pushing at the top of the range and it gives this really weird feeling of a loud quiet band. This song ‘Cue The Strings’ has this kind of crappy, wind-up string sound, that sounds like it’s been recorded onto tape a hundred times with two voices singing over it. That’s all that’s in it. But you get this feeling as it goes on that it’s absolutely massive and it’s hard to describe why, but I think it’s something to do with that production, the way it’s just biting at the distortion level. It’s got this swelling feeling that’s like the sun rising and that matches the lyric; 'Here comes the cold sunshine.' You get the feeling of being on a planet that has no atmosphere and when the sun rises you’re going to get burned up. It feels like such a huge sound but it’s really only two voices and a keyboard. I think that’s a great example of the power of production."

"Woody Allen movies are like Beatles songs. I can’t name my favorite without you immediately naming a better one. But this one tops the list for me. It invented the modern romantic comedy while simultaneously deconstructing it. It’s skeptically romantic, like most of us. Like a child’s imagining of what adult life is probably like, it’s filled with the kind of hilarious nonsense that defined Woody Allen’s standup and early writing, which I also loved. I recognize the mastery of Crimes and Misdemeanors. And Manhattan. Hannah and Her Sisters. I was floored by Blue Jasmine, which I’d put up there with his best. But this one, man it just nailed a tone I’ve never seen again. I immediately applied to NYU with every intention of meeting a woman who wears a tie."

"I heard a really early demo of theirs that someone sent me once and it mentioned me, a really early demo of theirs. I could never work out what position he was taking on me. He goes [adopts Jason Williamson drawl] ‘Baxter Dury!’ and quotes one of my songs, but then he just disses everybody. I said ‘who the fuck is this guy?! I don’t wanna be dissed!’ And then when someone told me he was a fan, I was like ‘thank fuck’, and I listened to the album that broke them. I was living in the country and I was jogging a lot, I remember thinking it was fucking brilliant. I wrote songs like ‘Miami’ and stuff off the back of listening to that album a lot. We became mates and it became a nice two-way appreciation thing. I used some of Jason’s energy, started being a bit less apologetic, so he was an inspiration. We send little caring texts to each other every now and then. He’s a lovely bloke, I really like him loads. He’s really sensitive. I love that they’re now becoming the darlings of that world. They deserve to be."

"I want to go into another movie that I gotta bring up. The Pianist with Adrien Brody, Roman Polanski, the whole thing. Now, I don’t endorse his moral behaviors, but I have to say man, that movie… What he did with that character put me there, and I had never been there. Literally, I’m in the theater, and dude, I’m crying, I’m like, “Yo, this is crazy!” I go by emotional moments; if I walk out of the theater and I’m actually changed, you know what I mean? You know, you see the world in a different way. That’s the power of movies, to me. Like, when you go in and you saw the world one way, but when you walk out, I’m like, “I saw the world in a whole different way.” And Adrien Brody’s performance really taught me what an actor should do and should be. He gave everything he had. It was an awesome performance, an awesome movie, and I would just encourage everybody to see that one. That’s one of my favorite movies of all time. I bought that sucker; I got it on Blu-Ray, you know? [laughs]"

"What a great singer, what a great record. I was living in West London in Notting Hill when I heard this. It felt like the time I was living in. I think it's an extraordinary production, the whole piece, and it doesn't matter whether you believe that it is politics, propaganda or poetry, the voice I think is just incredible. I take it as all three... it depends on de 'erb man. It'd be so addictive to play bass like that, so I've always avoided it. Roundabout '76, '77, it was like hearing Blue Beat in shebeens in Notting Hill. That was understanding something else, detuned basses, that was all about sonics. And then the act of actually playing something so melodic would seem even more perverse. It really informs electronic music. Physically it is really enjoyable to play bass - there's a similar element to playing sport, that sense of coordination and being involved in an activity with other people. There were times when, and particularly on our 'Drill' marathons, you really do get beyond pain and an outer body experience, which is of course indescribable, and that's exciting."

"I heard that when it first came out in 2010. I've got it on CD. He was a member of the Flipmode Squad so he'd done his time already I think. He probably felt like an old bastard as well - he's probably older than me! You've got the obvious misogyny in there and there was lots of that, but there was this real interest in the history of the pimp, which is a controversial subject, but it's almost like he's done his research on it and looked at it in a political sense. It's not just blatant misogyny as well, but then it is, it swipes over to that, and then it swipes over to gang on the corner, shooting, drugs. I get the impression that a lot of the time this is stuff he has observed. A lot of the time, these rappers like Conway the Machine and West Side Gunn, used to be dealers but had to step out of it to go professional. So they have this whole memory bank of experiences to draw from and then in that environment it's probably very close to you."