"I'd heard of Andy Warhol, but I'd never heard The Velvet Underground until David Bowie talked about them in interviews in the NME, and of course Transformer. I'd rather talk about Transformer than the banana album actually, because Transformer sums up the era. I do believe that Mick Ronson was very instrumental - like a classically trained musician as well as a gorgeous rock god lead guitarist. His arrangement abilities for both Ziggy Stardust and Transformer have not been fully recognised in the history of pop music. I don't think David would've broke through without that. I remember dancing to 'Vicious' in a nightclub called Masquerade in Liverpool - a really eccentric gay bar full of diesel dykes, prostitutes and older gay men with dyed black hair and toupees. It was a strange netherworld hidden up a back alley that embraced a bunch of freaks of my generation like Pete Burns and me, Jane Casey, who wore too much make-up. That was the thing about a gay club, you were safe almost in there. A strange refuge. I suppose in a way, punk kind of helped that. Absolutely. One minute you were queer on the street, the next minute you were a punk. It normalised that sort of behaviour really, you know; ""Oh, they're just punks"", and it was a diversion away from sexuality. Punk was strangely non-sexual. Even the main protagonist John Lydon had something of a 'neither here nor there' about him."

"This was also in the same house, and the second song that made me cry was on this album. I think it may have been 'Bedtime For Toys': it was a song about how some children didn't get any toys, and made me really sad that actually some children didn't get any toys at Christmas. It seems quite silly now, but it had that effect. Also, his version of 'Ave Maria'. It's an amazing album. It's not a particularly known album though. I had lunch years ago with Nona Hendryx and Vicki Wickham. They're very knowledgeable about Motown, as Vicki had produced Ready Steady Go! and was instrumental in bringing over the Motown sound - and even still calls him 'Little Stevie Wonder' - and they weren't even aware of the album. It just reminds me of a time when I was playing other people's records. My dad was a big country & western fan into Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline. There were also six or seven albums by Yma Sumac, which were very bizarre and had amazing covers, and I would think ""who is this?"". I think he may have got them through Reader's Digest or something. They were quite exotic things. And also there were singles like The Monkees' 'Daydream Believer' and 'Everlasting Love' by The Love Affair and '(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay' by Otis Redding. These were already there in the house, and it wasn't until..."

"I somehow remember hearing the first Human League album that has 'Being Boiled' on it, and just being amazed at how strange it was. Then when they started Heaven 17 it was the most odd, phenomenal pop music. At times it seemed as if they were choosing to be really poppy and commercial, and they were really good at it, and other times of their own free will and volition, they were trying to be like mutant pop stars. Then the BEF, and I feel old dating myself like this, it first came out as a cassette and it was very rare for an artist to release an album on cassette. There was one song on there, I think it's called 'The Decline Of The West' and it still stands as one of the most beautiful pieces of music I've ever heard. That particular instrumental somehow wormed itself into my DNA. There are certain songs like that, 'Heroes' by David Bowie, 'Atmosphere' by Joy Division, I remember as a young 15-year-old musician thinking to myself 'all I want to do is aspire to make music that's 50% as good as this'. It seemed utterly absurd to try and make music as good as this, because that would be impossible, but I thought it might be a realistic challenge to make music half as good. Thank you for asking me to do this. Now I'm going to go and listen to all these records."

"This is just double bass, drums and some kind of keyboard at some point. I chose this album for the opening track. The rest of the album is alright, but it sounds a bit dated. The opening track though is great. The start with the saxophone, or whatever it is, is quite dark, and then it teases with the synths. I used to have it on and think, ""Oh, this is fucking great."" This came out in 1996. I was living with a guy who bought it. I would have never have bought it but he was a bit of a fashionista, you know. I was living in Nottingham. I had split up with my girlfriend and was lodging with this guy. He bought it and I got really into it, this album and Photek, which I chose as well. They started to get my mind thinking about electronica, although Red Snapper was essentially a live act, to me it sounded like electronica, all instrumental. He asked me to do some singing for him, the guy from Red Snapper. But I couldn't do it. He wanted me to do one song and I said I could do it, and then he said ideally he wanted me to do two and I was like, ""Hold on, come on."" I just didn't have the time, I said I'd have to let him down. Though the stuff he sent me over was quite good."

"Even though this album is instrumental it kind of feels like there are lyrics telling a story. But I couldn't really tell you what the story was. It isn't the same as certain atmospheric music. I can kind of understand their telepathic instinct with playing with Bill - there's a certain communication there. With Gunn-Truscinski Duo, their songs are worked out but then they do improv within that, I guess. - Kim Gordon I've known those guys for so long that I've gotten to see them grow and change as a duo. I think I set up one of their earliest shows. I've known John (Truscinski) since we were 18-years-old, so we've been playing music together since we were kids. So I've got to see the band develop like that and on this new one, I just feel like they're really stretching out in these really interesting ways and approaching the compositions differently than the first two records do. It's just exciting to hear them keep working. I don't want to speak for them but I'm pretty sure it's all written in advance, but with little moments, especially live, that they can stretch out and play with. They have really good chemistry. As usual with music like this, the record is partial ideas of what they can do live. Seeing them live, they've been playing together for a really long time and they can push at different points and it's really cool to see."