"For the rest of these songs we’re closer to now. My Father-in-law introduced me to this, he’s not a musician by trade but he grew up in the hippy era and was really into blues. He has all of these reference points, music that went totally over the head of my generation. The reference points from that period for my generation are a totally different set of people, Jimi Hendrix or music that even my Father-in-law didn’t know at the time, like the Jim Sullivan record that people are digging out as an undiscovered gem. “I would never have discovered Charlie Musselwhite but for my Father-in-law. He was excited that I was a musician and we could hang out and talk about records, sometimes it doesn’t work and his taste will veer in directions that I totally can’t get into, but he’s introduced me to some great music that I love, like Professor Longhair records. ""I heard this in 2009, after Veckatimest and it was really striking because it’s so straight-up and straightforward. It’s the most minimal 6/8 blues tune and it’s very simple, the drums, organ and guitar line don’t change, the harmonica does the melody and a simple solo and that’s it. There’s these beautiful little contained elements, all the sounds are super lush and it’s another kind of subtlety, the attention to tone is so specific. It’s really elegant and hip, but in a totally different realm, a blues perspective from a totally different era, it’s like what Beach House would have been if they were a blues band in 1962. “It’s not trying to do anything revolutionary, it’s just exactly what it is, great playing without trying to be great playing. It’s so personal and visceral and sometimes you really need that sort of music. It’s the simplicity and soulfulness, it’s so minimal and especially going into Shields we started talking about that more and more, having that sense of space"

"This is a very personal selection. I was 13 years old and was falling into bad musical company - Red Hot Chili Peppers, Limp Bizkit and all the music that the hot boys at school were into - and coming home and threatening to get a Chili Pepper tattoo. I think my father had had enough and told me to listen to an album as he thought I might like it. He needed to pull something out of the bag and steer me onto a good path. My dad loved Pavement. It was the first time I had heard music that I felt was mine. I didn't know anything about the band – whether they were dead or alive. It didn't matter that it was music that my friends weren't listening too – it eclipsed all of that. I just remember being really struck by how the songs would trickle in all these different kinds of directions and would have all of these weird guitar solos. They weren't as formulaic as the guitar songs I was used to from all of the terrible music I was listening to at school. I became absolutely fascinated with Pavement and I didn't care that no one at school had heard of them. It was the beginning of having the courage to say, "This is the music I like and I don't care if anyone puts it down.""

"Then, my last one is going to be — this might be slightly more obscure, though it really shouldn’t be. I fell in love with this film when I first saw it and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a film as beautiful, as contemplative. The film After Life by Hirokazu Koreeda. I remember when I first saw it, just being totally blown away by every single frame of it. The honesty of it, the fact that it celebrated life, the fact that it was so unbelievably profound and spoke volumes about living life to the fullest and cherishing every moment. I don’t think there’s been a more beautiful film about life itself. It’s so understated in the way he tells his story. It’s obviously a collection of vignettes and a collection of talking heads, but woven into this narrative. Again, I might be wrong, but I seem to remember that the number of the people who contributed to the experiences of life are real people — it’s almost like documentary-styled elements to the film itself. So you got these really personal memories that are very private. Sometimes they’re nostalgic, sometimes they are beautiful, sometimes they’re funny and amusing. That, for me, is the ultimate win. When the Blu-rays of that came out in Japan, straight away I was like, “I’m buying this film! I need this film in HD.”"

"I saw the movie as a teenager and I loved it, but I didn’t know why I loved it. I loved it because it just felt like a gargantuan document about time and the history of time, but I didn’t really understand it. Then I saw it again probably in my mid-20s, and the part that I glommed on most to was – and this was pre-AI, basically pre-Siri; you could imagine me thinking about 2001 in the age of Siri. But then I watched it again probably two years ago, and it absolutely transformed itself, and I started to take different meaning from it. And I realized that, ultimately, what it was saying is that we are the aliens, and that curiosity, mankind’s curiosity, is what actually leads to our own demise in a deep, deep way. That we know something is a problem, yet we want to embrace it. I haven’t ever felt that way while watching a film. It’s such a perfect, beautiful document about the universe."