"An utter masterpiece from the great Akira Kurosawa. Curiously, a Dashiell Hammet novel provided the inspiration for this film. I love that an American pulp novel from the 1920s was the spark for a staggering work of genius from Japan over three decades later. It demonstrates how art can transcend barriers across time, space, and culture and speak to us in a meaningful way. Yojimbo was remade as Sergio Leone’s spaghetti western classic A Fistful of Dollars, which I saw and loved long before I knew the original even existed. But when I discovered Yojimbo, it was like a gift from the universe. Everything else paled in comparison. Yojimbo is part western, part gangster noir, part samurai story, all awesome. It’s so good. Plus, if Kubo’s dad looks a wee bit like Kurosawa’s resplendent muse Toshiro Mifune, that’s not necessarily a coincidence."

"I was up in Glasgow, Stephen Pastel gave me that record and it's since become one of my favourites because it's really nice to listen to lying down and relaxing. Sometimes that's what you want from a record, you just want to let it wash over you, and I find that one does it in a very pleasant way. Pulp and The Pastels were in similar dire financial straits because we were both signed to this terrible label called Fire Records. We both got screwed through that, but that wasn't what we bonded over. Stephen has an amazing record shop up in Glasgow called Monorail that's been going for a while. I remember him starting that back when everyone was saying 'well why would you open a record shop when that's a dead format', I think he was quite far-sighted there. "