"This was probably the first Scott Walker song that I heard, other than Walker Brothers’ songs. “I was in a friend’s car in London around eight years ago and ‘It’s Raining Today’ came on. At the beginning I thought it was unnerving, this weird cluster of notes. At the end of it I turned to my friend and asked, “What was that? Is it modern?” When he explained it was a record from the ‘60s I was like “Are you kidding me?” The production and vocal sound is so clear and hi-fidelity. “I fell in love with the sound of it from a production point of view first of all. I’ve always been interested in the crooner vocal and all that sort of stuff, but once I got into the songwriting it blew my mind, because this is stuff that you can’t sit down and play on an acoustic guitar. “There’s this theory that you should be able to sit and play any good song on an acoustic guitar and ‘It’s Raining Today’ throws that theory out the window. You couldn’t do that song, and songs like it, justice on a guitar, because the orchestration and the chord changes are more psychedelic than any psychedelic record I know. I literally can’t work out any of the chord progressions, and I’m usually decent at sussing them out. I still don’t know what these extended chords are. Maybe if I was a piano player, I would. So, I find that very, very inspiring. “I absolutely love the string arrangement to the song too, it’s so harmonious, even though it’s totally inharmonic. I don’t know how to do that. It’s so brave to have that ominous thing going on underneath these beautiful cadences. There are moments where it’s just on the cusp, but because it’s an orchestra playing it they’re all moving together. If you did the same thing with electronic music or all of it separately, it would be very hard to get that movement and that swell and modulation."

"It's an unstoppable record. I nicked my copy so I never had a sleeve for it, so I never got any of the song titles or anything like that. But again it's a very complete record. It's one of the few albums that I can just leave on and it can play all the way through and you don't go oh, not this track again, I hate this song. Everything on it sounds like it was recorded in somebody's bedroom. I've never even looked up how they actually did do it, but I just love that the machines and the loops they used were pretty much standard for the dance crowd, and things like where I would have said oh, not that beat again, everybody's heard that loop, you know, actually they turned round and said ah, but if we do it like this it sounds really good. And the production on it is amazing. Some of the things that are going on with the timings on the compressors and the noise gates, on that level there's plenty to listen to, as well as the songs being great. The dynamics and the editing in and out and the mixes are really quite something else. I wonder sometimes if it's only because I've made records myself that I get how much work must've gone into that to make it happen. But at the same time it still sounds like it was done in a bedroom. But again, they're very minimalist in what they use. They pick their shots. When they do something they make sure it's in the right way and in the right place. There's nothing in there that clouds the water or gets in the way of the vocals or loses the bass. It's always relevant."

"If I had to do my top 100 movies I think 15 to 20 of them would be Woody Allen movies. This is the toughest one for me to do because the instinct is to say Annie Hall, because it’s undeniably, I think, perfect — in terms of comedy, romantic comedy specifically. It’s one that, the older I get, I feel like I continue to grow with, and I check in with it every once in a while. Depending on where I am in my life and the relationships I’ve had, I can always glean something different from it or recognize some truth in it that I’ve experienced or yet to experience. It changes every time. If I were like an evangelical, crazy born-again it would be my Bible. It’s like having an old sage friend who you don’t see very often, who’s tremendously neurotic. I also relate to him so much just as a neurotic and an over-analyzer. I fell in love with him in junior high school when, you know, you’re going through your formative years and you’re realizing certain qualities about yourself. So when I was introduced to Woody Allen it was such a relief. He made me feel like it was okay; not only could I function with neuroses but I could thrive. And certainly with women you go through so many relationship questions and struggles and it’s just nice to know someone can take all of that and create entertainment and mine those life transitions for such comedy. There’s a lot of solace in that. But I also love him on a simple comedy level — I almost love his physical comedy and his slapstick as much. So if I had to pick just one, I would say “Every movie he made in the ’70s.” [laughs]"

"This is from that same period. He's such an unusual artist. I could have chosen the first album but I'll choose Shooting At The Moon because I saw him play when I was in Coventry and it was just absolutely extraordinary. It was the group that had Herbie Flowers, David Bedford, Mike Oldfield... This was another John Peel thing. I heard 'Joy Of A Toy', 'The Lady Rachel', 'Stop This Train' with Robert Wyatt playing drums, and all that early Soft Machine stuff which he liked. It's beautiful, things like 'May I?', incredibly gentle, beautiful love songs. Sexy. That gentle and sexy thing has always been there in Wire. When you think of 'Blessed State', which is Bruce's song, absolutely beautiful. There's always that temptation to make it simple; Colin with his white hat and us with our black hats, that's the tension. It's not as if we haven't been accused of being obscure on occasion, or opaque. But usually it's the things that people think are opaque are the things that are straight reportage. People do it, you see it, you write it. Real life is stranger than fiction but it seems as if in popular song it's not - it makes real life really dull and not about love, negotiation, and mess, and passion."

"I really like songs that are storytelling in a way and The Kinks are great at that. “Waterloo Sunset” in particular sparked a lot of images in my mind about how you write songs and the way that melodies flow. “I think the best songs make you feel a certain way, and it’s a bit more than just the lyric really. The lyrics for “Waterloo Sunset” are brilliant but the song makes you feel like there’s a longing for a lost moment. I love the idea of two people meeting in a crowd, but with the whole atmosphere of the song, as soon as I hear it, I slip back into it and it just overwhelms me. ""There’s also a beautiful lost story within the song, the tale of a city and a river. I read that Ray Davies originally called it “Liverpool Sunset”, from when he was on tour in Liverpool and then later he changed it. “I was pretty obsessed with music from when I was quite young, and I still listen to music an awful lot. I don’t listen to these songs much anymore, but when I hear them, I love them. I think on my musical journey and absorbing that stuff, The Beatles and The Kinks were very much the beginning of it. I’m definitely sticking in an era here!"

"There’s no performer like Ivor Cutler. This record is a mixture of songs and poetry and stories and the lines between them all aren’t particularly distinct. There’s also a lady who I think was his girlfriend or lover at the time, but she has a couple of short poems on it. The only thing I can think that would be similar would be if you had Philip Larkin and Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band on a record together. It manages to capture those two extremes. It’s also a misleading record because when you first listen to it you think its daft nonsense, and it’s not, it’s extremely astute observation that is succinctly delivered. There’s one piece that talks about sex: "I used to lie in bed with women I loved and have sex. With this woman, I lie in bed and have love, whatever we do is love. Even sex." You have that next to a song about a ludicrous fantasy story about someone saving a sparrow from a taxi driver’s boots. The imagery is wonderful and it’s truly absurd but the absurdity can distract you from how observant it really is. It also has a distinct melancholy running through it as well. Even a song like 'I Believe In Bugs' and the last line "I will feel the bugs wriggle as they eat me away" – it’s funny and it’s absurd but he’s talking about mortality and the absurdity of existence. And very Scottish as well!"