"I love weird people. The thing about voices is there's this idea, and this is my favourite thing about punk, is that I get really sad when people say they can't sing. That's not true. Anyone can be a singer. But when you hear Nina, she sounds like the exorcist. She uses all of her different voices. I don't even know another Nina Hagen record because that's the only one that ever really resonated with me. Playing that at Little Girls Rock camp [a foundation that funds and supports music education for young girls, of which Ditto is on the advisory board along with Tegan And Sarah and Kathleen Hanna], it blew their fucking minds. It blew their minds, and that is why I love Nina Hagen, and Yoko Ono, Diamanda Galas and Nina Simone because all of their voices are instruments. And her look! I met her and what did she say to me, "I didn't escape East Germany for nothing". Her story is phenomenal. It makes sense, because when you come from that kind of place you have to push the envelope because there's nothing to guide you. You have to make it up yourself and when you get to do that without pop culture references you get fucking Nina Hagen. It's so rare. I wonder what the next level of really untouched creativity will be? I wonder what that will look like? "

"To me, these are the two best resistance films ever made. And each is its director’s best film. I saw them very early, and they were very formative for me. They really show the complex nature of resistance, glorifying it but also showing the compromises you have to make when you’re in wartime. I love that The Battle of Algiers starts off with that line: “None of this is documentary footage.” What audacity to be like: this is going to feel and look so real that you’re going to think this is a documentary, so I need to tell you that it’s not. It’s a way of setting the bar so high, and then the film lives up to it and surpasses it! You feel the ambition in all of it. It’s just spectacular in every sense of the word. Army of Shadows is similar, though obviously it’s much more in Melville’s cinematic language. Something that has always struck me is that by the end of the film everyone does exactly what you would expect them to do, what they’re supposed to do, but it still just leads to fucked-up situations. It’s this real mess of an ending, but it’s all grounded in very real decisions that I can sympathize with across the board. It’s rare to see a film that gets to the humanity of every decision, to the point where they’re lived-in, not just plot points."

"This is extremely gloomy music, but an absolutely brilliant album. I first heard it in the 80s. It was the kind of thing I always listened to at the end of the day, when you're a bit pissed and in bed and have probably smoked a bit more weed than you should have done. It's such a powerful record. It's got so many different moods in it and it takes you from melancholy to sheer triumph, in a way. The journey along the way, and the performance of Mark Hollis, is so moving, and I think the other musicians on board have great empathy for that and it all fits into place. It really does sound like they were all sat in the studio and said okay, we're all really good at this, let's do something that makes that obvious. And I think it does. I knew Ed Hollis, Mark Hollis's brother, because he came in and produced 'Love Song' for The Damned. And of course we knew him because he was the manager of Eddie & The Hot Rods, so we were already in the loop. But I didn't really bother with Talk Talk until this record came out and someone said have you heard this? And it just immediately resonated. I thought oh, I like this; I want more of it. Now I find I have to be in the right mood to listen to it; reflective, you might say."