"In 2000, I went into the shop and I bought some jazz that I knew I wanted to get, and I said to the guy, "what else can I get?", and he pointed out this album with camels on it. I thought, I'll give that a try, and it was this Nubian music, which I got really into and also I bought another one, which was an Algerian CD. I listened to that for a bit and then I just kind of stopped and didn't really listen to world music for 10 years. Ali Hussan Kuban was the doorway to all the rest of them. I heard that in 2011 and I've basically been searching ever since for anything else that feels that way. A few years later, one of the things I found was this track 'Baba Ramdev'. It's just so incredibly joyful and it feels like an epic adventure. There's something absolutely epic about it, to me. It sounds like they're outside. How you seen any of those YouTube videos of the Gypsies of Rajasthan, the colourful dresses they wear and the dances they do? It's pretty incredible. And they're always in some really remote-looking rocky outcrop, somewhere in the desert. And the cover of this album as well, the guy with the amazing moustache. I love that whole spirit, really wild and free - that's what the song feels like to me."

"As often happens the first record you really get into by an artist, sometimes it's hard to replace that one. She's had great records since but this is the first one that I was blown away by. This record came out in the summer of '98 and my band had been dropped by Elektra. Right after that I moved into the guest room of my best friend's house. I had nowhere to go, I didn't have any money and now I certainly had nothing to do. My relationship with my girlfriend was on the rocks and this was the record I had on in this very bleak moment. Constantly on. It was a thing where it hurts to put it on. It hurts to listen to 'No Sense' and 'Metal Heart'. It's too raw almost. But again, I like being able to feel something in music. I still love it and play it and I still feel like I'm sitting in my friend's extra room in October with the window open and the rain is coming down. It still gives me that feeling."

"In my formative years, there was Roxy Music, David Bowie and Cockney Rebel. And I loved Roxy and Bowie, but Cockney Rebel had a big part in my heart, even though they didn’t become as massive as the other two. Seeing Steve Harley in a bowler hat on Top Of The Pops doing ‘Judy Teen’ really sticks in my mind. There are loads of really great songs on that album, like ‘Mr Soft’, and I love the whole vibe of it. He’s an underrated lyricist, like Bryan Ferry. This was one of those albums you’d walk around the playground with, under your arm, to show that you were a bit of a Jack The Lad. And he sang with this nasal whine, and I’m sure old Johnny Rotten borrowed a bit of that. And I’m sure there’s a bit in one of the songs where he goes “DESTROY!”, and I’m sure Johnny Rotten got a smidge of that. And he didn’t hide his London accent either, which definitely resonated."

"""This would've been in my top five for sure - it's a big, big record for me. It's incredible on so many levels. If you want a record that illustrates what music can do in a very different sense, this is it. It's progressive and weird, but it shows you can make a concept album that isn't awful. I grew up in this little town called Dundas in Ontario - actually, I lived outside it, but all my friends lived in town. And this record is like a mythical record in Dundas, because one of my friends found a copy of it in the middle of the road - just lying there - and he brought it home. I wasn't doing any drugs at that point, but it was around that time my friends were smoking weed and doing mushrooms and whatever, so finding a beat-up copy of this record and putting it on it was like: ""HOLY SHIT!!!"" I still can't really listen to that track that's just an infinity symbol - I find it uncomfortable. And then there's 'The Four Horsemen' - that's like the Dundas theme as far as I'm concerned. It captures something of the eccentric spirit of this weird place that I grew up in. At the time that I found out about this record, the only reason I knew about Vangelis was because of the Chariots Of Fire theme, which was pretty terrible or definitely naff. But I love introducing people to this record because it's so far away from what they think Vangelis or Demis Roussos would do, even if you know the Blade Runner soundtrack. It's so far removed from anything that either of those guys was involved in. The music on there is so diverse; each track is completely different. Leading up to the release of the new album I was doing a DJ mix, and because of doing this feature there are now two tracks from this record on that mix! I'd forgotten how fucking good all these tracks are."""