"How I got to know about it was through knowing their original record label Kitty-Yo and working with people in Berlin and going over there, and then I met Ronald, and this album summed up a moment for me. Dance music had so completely dominated the 90s. Really you could only ever talk about music in terms of the beat. There was techno and electro and then there was drum & bass, and they were so dominant; there was no other music. I remember thinking at the time, at the height of drum & bass, why would you listen to any other kind of music besides drum & bass? That's the only kind of music there is. There's Britpop, but that's rubbish. And then towards the end of the 90s all that started to fade and there was Tortoise suddenly appearing with what Americans who didn't do dance music did as instrumental music. And then from Germany you had To Rococo Rot. I think they gave me that record, because I think the version I've got is a promo. And again it's one of those records we just listen to over and over again. Wire did a tour, I think it was in 2000, and when we started we hadn't provided any music to go on before the band. And in every venue they were playing something like Soundgarden. Sorry, but I can't stand Soundgarden. I can't take it. So then we said well why don't we give them some music to put on? And I had that album, so we had that on before every show and it was really good. It was like you have some thrashy support band and then some thrashy dirge playing after that and then Wire coming on and it's like an evening of dirge. So to lighten it up we put something else on that puts the audience in a different space. And it also set us up in a different way. We got to feel differently about what we were doing. It was very effective for that"

"Bowie was so important when we were growing up in terms of the way he chose different directions and that that was an acceptable thing to be doing. You'd just be getting into one thing and then he'd turn into the Thin White Duke or something and he'd invite you to twist your head around that. And when Low came out it was like, ""Whoah!"" because it was a complete head twister in terms of how the record sounded, and how Bowie removed himself from the music because there's hardly any upfront Bowie on it. I've always liked instrumental stuff – things like The Shadows and The Tornados' 'Telstar' and those kinds of things – and it's reflected in the music of 808 State, which draws from that kind of thing where melody is the central thing. But the instrumentals on Low almost sound like backing tracks and that's quite confusing. And it was beatless, and that took you to another place. Plus, it was also the record when I first fell in love. There's that theory of your first love record, where it soundtracks your summer and Low is that record. That kind of music and that hormonal rush creates a kind of nostalgia that's deeper than other records. The fact that Brian Eno is on it, when I first started making music, gave me a bit of elbow-room. With the musicians around now, there's a lot of technique, but technique isn't the key to everything. This idea of being a non-musician and using noise as your instrument defined me quite early on; the School of Eno was in me! Even though it was recorded in 1976 and released in 1977, in some ways this is the first post-punk record. This certainly coalesces with PiL's first album, and it they both gave rise to the notion that not everything proggy should be thrown out with the bathwater."

"There are certain records that I know a lot about and others that I don't, and I think this one, for me, purely on a symphonic, musical level, it just is one of my favourite classical pieces. I think it's especially about the first movement, where the double-basses come in barely audibly, and it builds and they're just repeating their pattern. There's something about pattern in classical music, and that's why I've chosen Steve Reich as well: phrases and themes that get repeated and then get others on top that repeat, it's a cyclical thing that starts to happen with this harmony and rhythm, and it fascinates me. I also love double basses being bowed, there's just something about that that really pleases me. It builds into this huge thing and there's this moment where there's just one piano note, like a summoning, and the woman's voice comes in. I just think it's really soulful. I could've chosen Ravel's Bolero, which is also a really popular piece of music, but it's another one of my absolute favourites because again it's repetitive, it's almost like dance music, it's a repetitive theme that builds and builds. When I was going to see Underworld, off my face, in a tent - I think there's something similar, when instrumental music just builds and builds and builds. [Górecki] is really interesting technically as well as emotionally, which is the theme of this whole discussion almost: my greatest love is of people that have managed to walk that line between technical, competent songwriting or structure or understanding the art form and understanding the craftsmanship and at the same time imbuing that with reality and grit and fucking true connection to soulfulness and the universe. You can make a person cry because of what you're doing. That combination is just dynamite, isn't it? There's nothing better. You can sit in a room making a lot of avant-garde white noise and wanking over yourself, that's fine, or you can make amazing, soulful pop songs. Surely the artist's job is to be a consummate craftsman but within that be a complete child, innocent of expression and tapped in."