"You simply couldn’t ask for a better pop record by a rock and roller. There’s not a lot of songs on here I don’t like. I don’t even know what I could say about this one, other than it simply is a must-own record. But once you get past the never-ending hits on this one, there’s a depth to the lyrics that really rivals anyone writing out there. That creeps in after a few listens. How brilliant the words are on this record. I love when sad songs sound happy, and this is maybe the king of them all: “Born down in a dead man’s town/The first kick I took was when I hit the ground/End up like a dog that’s been beat too much, ‘till you spend half your life just a covering’ up, now."

"I actually first discovered a lot of the films on this list, like News from Home, when I lived in New York, next to Kim’s Video, a time when I went a lot to Anthology Film Archives and Lincoln Center. Chantal Akerman has always been a big inspiration for me, and News from Home was the first film of hers that I saw. Watching it was so inspiring and made me feel like I could make movies myself, because it’s so simply done yet so affecting—just letters and an empty city. I have a very strong relationship with my mother, and she also used to send me letters when I lived in New York. I discovered Jeanne Dielman later, and a lot of the screen tests I did for Invisible Life were taken from frames from that film."

"My friend Al played it to me when we were living together. It's a box set of all four of his releases at that time. It's super bleak and I don't know what it says about my mental state then, but for a long time it was the record I would fall asleep to, particularly on tour. There's something microscopic about the sound, but it's like a musical optical illusion - it can sound vast and oceanic or it can sound quite narrow. He's done something fascinating with the sonics so that it works on two dimensions. It's also just heartbreaking - there's one piece called 'Orgone Donor' with musical saw and violin over granular drones; a matt finish with these aching, twisted sliding harmonies. Like the soundtrack to the end of days. As though you're sliding into a black hole."

"This is just maddeningly brilliant. At once sweeping and epic, and yet searingly personal, thanks to the incredible work of Peter O’Toole. It’s such a long film, which I love, and yet there’s not a moment in it that seems like it’s played too long. Everything from the rich orchestral score, to the extraordinary photography of F.A Young, and David Lean at the peak of his powers make this a timeless film, and one that remains, sadly, as relevant today as when it was shot. It’s about political and financial power and about the subjugation of a people, the fight for freedom and the power of the individual to make a stand against the imperial. All the performances are fantastic, from Sir Alec Guinness to Omar Sharif and on. Again, this feels like a perfect piece of cinema to me."

"I saw an advert for this album when it came out and I had to buy it. I just thought, 'With a title like that, it’s either going to be the greatest thing ever or the worst thing ever.' And from the second I put it on and heard 'Barabajagal (Love Is Hot)' by Donovan that blew me away. The second the album finished I got on the phone, and I was like, 'Find me these guys. I need to go and work with them.' Then I found out more about them and I went onto their website and they’ve got podcasts and everything. You should see them DJing. They are unbelievable. They will blow your mind. They’re modern day geniuses… even though one of them never says a word and the other one never stops talking."