"Kraftwerk were a major influence on me musically and stylistically. They were really the first truly electronic band I'd heard. Afterwards, of course, I listened to all the other German things like NEU! and Can. I'd listen to The Human League and whatever came out of England in that time period. But, Kraftwerk were right at the centre of it. The first album I heard in its entirety was Trans-Europe Express, which I almost picked for this because I do love that album. But, I think Kraftwerk’s absolute masterpiece is The Man-Machine - be it visually, song-wise, arrangements or sounds. It is as close to a perfect record as I feel has been made in that genre. There is nothing that touches it. When I used to DJ at the Rum Runner club - I was 16 or 17 and starting out - I used to play a lot of tracks from The Man-Machine because almost everything on that album you can play. Funnily enough, I'd never seen Kraftwerk until recently when they played the Tate Modern. I went to three shows - The Man-Machine, Trans-Europe Express and Computer World - because I felt as they had had such an impact on me I should go and see a whole load of the shows. They weren't a letdown, the 3D effect was extraordinary and it was such a joy to hear those songs loud through a system like that. You don't tend to get to hear synthesisers that loud unless you go to a club and listen to some horrible remix. Kraftwerk had great taste and a lot of music is about taste. They didn't make so many albums over a period of time but everything has been impeccable - every sound, every delay, every vocoder. They really paid attention to detail and that's something I have a complete obsession with. I can fiddle with something for ages and ages that I feel changes the whole track and nobody else will hear what I'm doing. Kraftwerk had a great ability for that. They made really impeccable records."

"The Kinks were one of my favourite bands while I was growing up. I was introduced to them by MTV and the video for 'Come Dancing', which they'd play all the time. I really liked the video and the boy in that video really reminded me of one of my brothers. So I got into them through that and I also had a 'Best Of The Kinks' which I wore out because I listened to it so much. But Kinda Kinks, I didn't really listen to that record until much later. I think I was maybe in college, or after college, but it became one of those records that I would listen to all the time with James [Murphy]. We'd be at the DFA studio which, before it officially became a record label, always had the studio there, and it was a gathering place where something was about to happen. It was right around the time that James and Tim [Goldsworthy] were producing the Rapture record, I was hanging around there a lot and James was actually living in the office for a period of time too. And on Sunday mornings we'd sit around and listen to music. Kinda Kinks was one of those records. I love every song on that album but it does contain my least favourite song in the world: 'Dancing In The Street'. It's so bad that it's seeped into every other version that's ever been made, including the original version. So now all of them are ruined for me. It is the worst song. There was a brief period when MiniDisc players were kind of popular, and I loved MiniDiscs. I really wish they'd taken off because it's such a great format; it's this compact, digital format that can be edited very easily. You can make a mixtape, it was super easy to record onto, super easy to rearrange and me and James would make a lot of MiniDisc mix tapes for each other. One of the greatest things though was that I was able to make a version of Kinda Kinks without 'Dancing In The Street'."