"Donald Fagen's solo album is another of those albums that kind of teaches you what it is to be a songwriter. I feel like Donald Fagen did Aja for the musicians, and The Nightfly is for the songwriter. It's very much a concentrated idea. I remember getting turned on to this album by my home girl at the time; she was very much a muso. I would spend a lot of time listening to Steely Dan, and I didn't connect the dots – sometimes you don't connect them on your own. I had to be somewhere between 18 and 22 – somewhere in those years – she played me that album and I remember again, whenever I heard somebody create progressional music that are not normal choices, it always would perk my ears up, if it was somebody that would tastefully do something different or make some really outlandish choices, and Donald Fagen is the king of that. The Nightfly is one of those albums that I can't live without, that is where I come from as a songwriter. That again definitively is what created the songwriter in me, as compared to the bass player. The choice of the covers, the jazz covers, they feel like they were his songs, the way that he's playing them on the album – he made them real special. It was like it told his actual story of who he was, and I feel like that's the way you're supposed to play standards, not the part where you just learn it because it's cool. I think that there's some emotional connection that Donald Fagen had to these songs that he chose, along with the ones that he wrote on this album, and you can feel it. You can feel it. You can feel it. The Nightfly is a definitive album for me."

"Lyrically Dizzee Rascal is phenomenal, and musically he's one of the most progressive, forward thinking grime artists and musicians of our time. He won the Mercury Prize over ten years [before Skepta], which says it all. This record was what I listened to when I was commuting to and from Slough, when I was just starting Gallows, I was listening to it nonstop. I've loved grime since I was young, I've always loved hip hop but grime was so quintessentially British, you couldn't have made it anywhere else. To me grime is punk, more now than ever. Punk to me was the sound of disenfranchised youth, and that's what grime is. You take everything away from young people and tell them what they can't do, at some point they're going to say 'yes we can', and that's what's happening now. They feel discriminated against and now they're making the right fucking decisions by showing that. I think it's a classic record. What's really nice to see is that back when this arrived on the scene it was still very much about beef in the grime scene, people were still writing diss tracks, whereas what's happened recently is that when he played those tenth anniversary shows you just see everybody celebrating it, celebrating the fact that here's an album that did so much over a decade ago, and now we've just had a second [grime Mercury Prize winner]. I love that, but my problem is that there haven't been more. I love that these are being used as bookmarkers, as milestones, but we need a lot more than that, more progressive, forward thinking, unique individuals. That's what the Mercury Prize is supposed to be for, though it misses more than it hits."

"It's a huge, very personal, very absorbing rock record. I love it to bits. I heard them on John Peel, he was a big Codeine supporter… I think they were ahead of their time, because if you listen to them stylistically, it doesn't seem anything particularly different, because there's a lot of bands that make slow loud music, but this was incredible and unique. The songs are why they still maintain the interest. It was really moving seeing them at ATP I'll Be Your Mirror, and you can tell the band were quite touched as well. I was a big John Peel fan, and when we started the band it was an ambition to get played on John Peel, it was an ambition to get a Peel Session, so I think that it kind of went from being a fan to seeing him as some kind of way to let the world hear your music. It worked on different levels. Getting to meet him, he was a really wonderful person too. Even a lot of bands before my time, you'd get to hear them because they'd done Peel sessions, those grey 12". It was a seal of approval that the band were worth checking out because they'd got to do a Peel Session. I think he had a big influence on a lot of the bands up here because for a long time no-one really paid much attention to the music in Scotland apart from John Peel. If you got a session with him you got a few hundred pounds which could be used to play some gigs outside Scotland, so he almost acted as an arts fund for supporting Scottish musicians."

"I'm reminded how great it is all the time. It's a weird record, it has passages that are just fucking weird bleeps out of a synthesiser. People dismiss it because it's so popular, and I would tell them if they heard pieces of it they would think it's some freaked out indie group with these great old synthesisers. It's just so well done. There are these strange, jazz elements to Pink Floyd that I think musicians notice. I don't think the audience cares - these neat little things they do that make it their own trip. These combinations of chords and notes that just aren't typical. I suppose to me, it's universal music. I think they do this reptilian brain version of universal, emotional music and they use these very simple build-ups and harmonies, and they nail it on that record 20 different times. And to know that they end on one of the great crescendos that they've ever done, that bit in 'Eclipse' where they sing "all that you touch, all that you feel"… the way that builds up, no-one is ever going to do it that perfectly again. Those simple words, those simple themes, building, building. And you've got to remember it's Roger Waters singing. He's not a great singer, but it highlights this thing - it's a motherfucker, you can't write a song that great. You just have to hope that something happens. For them to end on that [sings a spot on Waters impression] "the sun is eclipsed by the moon." Blammo! Then that heartbeat, it's fucking phenomenal. It's easy to dismiss it because it's so popular, but I would say to anyone they should secretly listen to it and then discover that 'oh my God, it's awesome'."

"I discovered his music through a friend in Paris, Armelle Pioline, who used to be in a very good French group called Holden. They were very singular, and quite similar to Stereolab, actually: very poetic. And anyway she had worked with quite a lot of French people and she introduced me to a scene of French musicians that were kind of successful in their field but that I had never really explored. Bertrand Belin had a sort of hit in his own world called 'Hypernuit' and that song really shattered me. It had such depth: it was kind of a ray of light into a deep darkness. It's a little bit spooky, but incredibly poetic and haunting. It's the kind of tune you can't really put your finger on. It's kind of diffused but it creates a beautiful picture with touches of darkness and light. I'm very attracted to this type of songwriting; there's a singularity in the writing that I love very much. For me the hit on this particular album is 'La Mot Juste'. Pretty much everyone who's been through my kitchen I've played this record to, and they've all flashed on it: what's this? They've taken the name and really showed interest. It resonates; there's a deep resonance with the beauty of it. I'm not particularly a big fan of Bertrand's voice, which a lot of people seem to go for, but certainly the songwriting and the lyrics are quite sharp. He's also an author: he writes books. And the production on the record is very beautiful. It's 'La Mot Juste': the just instruments, the just notes, the just amounts of whatever it took. I like that. There's no excess, no fat. It's what it is. I love it."

"Field Music are the kind of band that don't inspire me, in as much as they don't inspire me to pick up a guitar again - they make me realise there's no point. No matter how much time I put in, I'll never be able to get anywhere near their inventiveness and dexterity. David and Peter Brewis are not only two of the best guitarists in Britain - they're also two of the best drummers, songwriters and producers as well. I got into them around their Tones Of Town album which is like their Beatles album, with perhaps a bit of Genesis thrown in for good measure. 'She Can Do What She Wants' is perfect pop music and 'A Gap Has Appeared' is two minutes of unbridled prog-pop genius. After this, they weren't even sure if there would be another album, but thankfully there was Measure, their most accomplished work to date. It's a masterpiece. It sounds like it was recorded on a huge budget with Todd Rundgren producing. It wasn't, however - it was just Pete and David in their own studio in Sunderland. From start to finish, this is a flawless modern band showing their talents and influences. They're on hiatus now, and I don't know exactly what that means. I know Peter and his missus Jen are expecting a baby in March, and when I teamed Matt Friedberger and David up for a recent session for my programme there was talk of them forming a band together. That'll be mind-blowing. I told David I'd want to be their roadie if they get the band together and tour. He said, 'Well, we will be needing a bass player…' Ha… No chance. Not in a million years will I put myself between two musicians I reckon are absolutely worthy of the title genius. I'll be happy carrying their amps."