"I'm an enormous Terry Riley fan. For me, Steve Reich and Terry Riley are the twin pillars of minimalism. Simplicity, harmony and repetition: they're very important things in what I do and what I really like. And I chose this album as opposed to A Rainbow In Curved Air because I heard that both John Cale and Terry Riley hated it, and I think it's a record that deserves love. 'The Mirrors In The Great Hall of Versailles' is a fantastic track and one which I just listen to over and over again. It's a really beautiful record. For years I hated the song. There's a song called 'The Soul of Patrick Lee' on it. But then I heard it somewhere and I thought it was quite good. But it's a strange hybrid record, and you can see how Terry could be dissatisfied with hearing something that has repetitive riffs and drums playing underneath it, and how John would feel like it didn't really accord with anything he was doing. Someone had obviously decided that they would make a good pairing because of their history. But they never made another record together which kind of tells you quite a lot. There hasn't been a Church Of Anthrax Revisited. Also it's a fantastic title. It's very dystopian."

"I chose it mostly for its beauty. I like the heart-wrenching minor chords. I'm a bit of a sucker for that, and again I find there is such a soothing quality to this record. It is on the melancholic side of things; it's not a sunshine album. But it is the kind of album where if you're not feeling too great you put it on and think oh well, there are people feeling much worse than I am! So cheer up! It has that kind of effect. I'm particularly in love with the string arrangements. I don't know who did them; I don't read the liner notes, but they really work for me. Beck worked with Thurston Moore on Demolished Thoughts, and again there is the same kind of string arrangement that comes in and out of songs. It holds much emotional power. In the earlier parts of the 90s we played some concerts with Sonic Youth, Beck and us, and festivals as well. He was a really good person to come across. I haven't crossed paths with Beck for many years now, but he is someone I would really like to work with, just on the strength of that production and those strings. I think we share musical terrain and I'd really love to work with him."

"This is not the sexy sounding Iggy like on Lust For Life. It’s not blown out and swinging all over the place. It’s real dry and angular and square to an almost suffocating degree. It’s strong and Iggy’s poetry is strong. It feels authentic. Once you get over that, it doesn’t sound like it was recorded at the most hip studio and that it’s smaller sounding, you can appreciate the production that is there and the performances that are there. It’s not trying to rip your head off. Lust For Life had a certain vibe as did The Idiot. They weren’t hi-fi but they packed a wallop. New Values is tight and restrained. It’s not going to fucking cum all over you. There’s no orgasm there. It’s slow methodical masturbation, coming from Iggy who is very Little Richard in his sexuality. [Black impersonates Iggy singing: “I’m not going to go any more, any more, any more.""] There’s honest admission of frailties and the human condition. It is saying, “I am the lamest, I am the shortest."" It’s still bravado and fuck you, get out of my way, it’s not just saying I want to fuck you either. He’s trying to say some stuff. It’s not diary rock. When Iggy gets poetic, he’s the best Iggy."

"This era of the Velvet Underground is possibly, along with Ray Davies, my favourite kind of singing. It’s sort of weedy and again without testosterone and certainly without force, it was just very, very hip and not trying too hard. It’s interesting, because did a band ever sound as hip, not trying, but still delivering? “Velvet Underground were a real staple of my generation, in that a bunch of kids in the mid-70s’ discovered them retrospectively, probably in a way that I’d imagine kids now discover The Smiths. They sounded genuinely subversive without being obscure, they were real, proper songs and there was a great poetry in there. “Often when you talk about songs to people, most people assume you’re talking about the words - to a lot of people that’s what a song is. But because I got so obsessed so young with the mechanics of the music, the production and how things came together, often I wasn’t really too bothered if the words didn’t make much sense. I’ve had amazing experiences with songs that had words that absolutely didn’t make any sense, like ‘Jeepster’. “‘Foggy Notion’ is a really good example of a song that’s just really rocking - the guitar is really hyped up and swings like crazy - that makes you feel really good and absolutely doesn’t need any serious lyrical content. In fact, sometimes - and I suspect it’s the case with ‘Foggy Notion’ because I know it so well - if the lyrics were snagging your attention too much it would distract from what it’s supposed to do. You’ve got to remember it was for young people in the 60s’ to Frug to, doing these dance moves in cool striped-shirts and cool shades and ‘Foggy Notion’ is all about that and the sound of the voice. I think that’s a great thing and something people who think songs are entirely about meaning and words aren’t aware of. “It’s an interesting thing with The Velvet Underground, because if you imagine The Rolling Stones back then, who were supposedly the baddest of the bad boys and The Beatles who were supposed to be the hippest and most worldly, I wonder what they made of The Velvets at the time or if they’d heard them. I know Dylan was aware of them, but writing songs like ‘Heroin’ and ‘The Black Angel's Death Song’, I wonder if you were in The Beatles or The Stones you were just going ‘Oh no, we’re so X-Factor.’"