"After Adrian and I broke up, and I moved into my new house, I bought myself a record player. Or, actually, if either of my kids are reading this, Father Christmas bought it for me [laughs]. Not that I think they'd be reading The Quietus yet – they're six and eight – but start them young. My mum brought me some records, and this is one she used to love when I was really small, although I only vaguely remembered it. I've always loved Maddy Prior and June Tabor's voices, though – do you know June Tabor's Abyssinians? That's an amazing record, full of depth and darkness, both in the singing, and the material. But listening to this…it made me think I'm sure it subsconsciously affected the way I make music. The way the women's voices interweave to tell their stories reminds me very much of the way Becky and I sing together, although she didn't remember the record at all! The band's also fantastic, including Martin Carthy, Nic Jones and Andy Irvine. The effect of this record on me is what I'd love to do every time making music."

"I got into him in about 1987 or something. If people ask me who I'd like to work with, he's the person I'd like to work with more than anybody. Glassworks is a very accessible album. I used to fall asleep to that record, that was my end of the day relaxation record. I'd leave it on the CD player going round and fall asleep to it, I loved it. Then I started getting interested in the idea of doing music with odd time signatures, and then Martin Ware and I formed a company called Illustrious, and we started doing more music like that. I find it really really soothing, and I'd love to meet the guy, well I'd love not to meet him, but I'd love to work with him. I'm nervous of meeting most people, but him I don't think I would be. I think it would be alright, obviously he does a lot of sequential music but with real instruments and real voices, and I guess he's made the decision not to do it with synthesisers, but I'd be the one trying to persuade him to do it with keyboards."