"This is track two on Beck’s Morning Phase, his ninth studio record, which I discovered after touring Radlands around America three times. I’d always appreciated Beck from a distance, but I never had an emotional connection to his music. I loved “Loser” and it was fun to spin him at an indie disco, but I didn’t have that real relationship with his music. But when this came out it blew my mind; it was such an incredible record. “It was written and recorded as a counterpart to Sea Change, his previous record. It used a lot of the same musicians and it was recorded in Nashville. It has that real blissed out, opioid induced country music feel to it - very floaty. To me, it really felt like it was his mid-life crisis record, the musical version of him buying a Bugatti and running off with his secretary. “Just like with King Crimson and Cass McCombs, Beck’s Morning Phase completely influenced Curve of the Earth and it gave us the sonic blueprint for that record. The blueprint was this woozy, washed out, ethereal, very spacious, widescreen feel. There are tinges of country there, but it’s more of a headphone stoner record."

"In the same [kin] as Ordinary People, I have to throw All the President’s Men in there, which is a completely different film for Redford to do, but probably one of the greatest journalism films of all time. There are so many elements to that film that are unique to it. The relationship between [Bob] Woodward and [Carl] Bernstein, the way those are portrayed, and then just the whole mystery of the Watergate being spilled out for us. When that happened, I was… I don’t remember, I must have been three or four, five. Those were the years — that was the first time I can remember in my lifetime of something going on politically, and so I actually have memory of that time. And I don’t remember what it was, but I remember the words “Watergate” meaning something. Meaning something big, even though I didn’t understand what they were. Just for that film to be so dialogue heavy, and so all about performance, and the written word, it is one of the most on-the-edge-of-your-seat thrillers that I can think of that is pretty powerful… It’s the most riveting film about people who sit down and type, you know what I mean? You can imagine, it’s pretty intense."