"I was into so much stuff around this time. It was 1981 and I was 12, turning 13 at the end of the year. I loved Duran Duran and Associates, 2 Tone stuff, ABC, The Jam... it didn't really matter then. You didn't have to be part of any tribe. We had them, but we never called them mods or rockers or whatever. We had the Sweats - they were the heavy guys who used to sit in a circle and smoke dope on the school field. They liked Motörhead and they all stank of patchouli oil. But they were all very friendly. Then there the Smoothies - they were more like mods really. Very tidy and neat, with these wedge haircuts. But I could never really do that. I could be one thing one day, and something else the next. I liked 'Ace Of Spades' at the same time as liking 'Planet Earth'. It was all the same thing. I remember being in class and we were all talking about 'Love Action', and singing the middle bit - "I believe, I believe what the old man says...", which I thought was profoundly wise at the time. It's still pretty good. I like the line, "I believe in truth/ Though I lie a lot." The noises in the intro really intrigued me. And for a while I did put the air guitar down and get my mum's ironing board out and play the synths on that. The music's quite cold - it's quite a cold groove for a love song. And it is a love song. His voice is kind of warm, but he's got such authority - you believe everything he's singing. At the end of that year, when Dare came out, everybody had it. It was great."

"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"