"I got into M.I.A. at a really weird time. I got into her just two years ago. I mean, I first heard her years ago and I thought it was really cool and interesting but I didn't really pay proper attention. But then I listened again two years ago and I listened to her new record and I was like, ""Yeah, whatever"", but I played it some more and I got really obsessed with it. She always maintains this incredible delivery. I guess she's rapping but to me it's the same as singing. Again, it's about moulding your voice to get the sound you want. Rappers do that a lot. I just like it and I don't have a real explanation as to why. I just think it's really good. She's an original and has a unique perspective. I went back to her other records and so I explored her in a way that I hadn't done with any other artist in years. I was on tour and it was just somehow helpful for me at that time. It added some life to my world."

"The Marble Index is a record that sounds like no other in the history of rock. It has a dark, European, stoic atmosphere with an intensity with Nico's singing and songwriting. You have to remember that with the Velvet Underground, she had to rely on Lou Reed writing songs for her. She wasn't exactly Lou Reed or John Cale either. She wrote a song with Jim Morrison, whom she described as her soul brother, and he said she should write songs and lyrics. Nico was a very cultured lady, she worked and hung out with the Stones, she was older and had been around. In fact, I think The Marble Index is a line from a Wordsworth poem. John Cale said that nobody was quoting Wordsworth in 1968. It's one of the first art rock albums and I think that there's an intensity of vision and focus on that record, unlike any other record I've heard. I mean these are the first songs that she wrote! Where did these come from? It's so otherworldly. This album was a huge influence when we were making Screamadelica, I listened to The Marble Index all the time."

"The thing that blows my mind about Fela's records is that he can just write two 15 minute songs, and they don't feel at all indulgent. It's all in one key but it never bores you. The tension is like slow, tantric sex, it just builds and builds. He knows how to capture a vibe and hold it tight so the intensity keeps building before it explodes. I don't know why 'Lady' is my favourite track, but personally it hits me really hard. I listen to it all the time, and I find the lyrics really entertaining too. It's his version of a feminist album I guess, he's talking about how 'the woman eats the meat before the man…' I guess that's a symbol of liberation. Meanwhile he has his nine wives singing the backing vocals. He's more than a musician, he's a superman. He almost took over Nigeria and his compound was a separate city, he had his own laws, it's amazing that music can be that powerful. I'm a huge fan of his, He's an example of how music can almost start a revolution."

"I'd never heard of Connie Converse before I saw Anna & Elizabeth – this amazing American duo – singing one of her songs, Father Neptune. I'm always drawn to sea shanties, but I remember thinking, wow, where does this come from? Her songs felt very different to me, but also familiar – I like to think it's me. ‘One By One' is about a woman walking in the dark, and it's heartbreaking, but so beautiful. ‘Trouble Man In The Sky' is about her falling in love with Orion, and it all going wrong. Even in her humorous and philosophical moments there's an underlying sadness, which for a folk singer is very attractive [laughs]. And then she left home one day, left her family a letter, saying, I'm going, just let me be. So ambiguous. Then she wasn't heard of again. But even before that, he's a fascinating songwriter. Her songs reminded me of Molly Drake's. They're so unusual, but so human. And I'm not a songwriter, I'm a singer, so I'm always about finding songs to sing. Ones full of intelligence, humour and melancholy that feel a bit apart, they always speak to me.
"

"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've heard their new album about six times on our trips together and I don't think I've embraced it as much [as Smile], 'cos it's got a more 80s sound. It helps that I'm not sure what these guys are singing about. It's not music that could have been done by an American group. I like the fact that it's done by these fucking drugged out Japanese dudes. There's probably something in one of those eight minute long jams that I picked out and thought 'Oh yeah! Cool! Let's hear that again'. There's something about these long passages that aren't going to tell you a story, it's not going to tell you an answer, it's not about a melodic piece playing out. It's just holding you out there on the edge, like, what's happening next? I don't know, I don't know. There's a lot of music doesn't mean anything, so it just spins my mind where I'm not thinking about anything. That's a great druggy calling that their music has for me. It suspends you, and you're free - you're just listening to Boris. That's the only thing in your world at the time."

"This one was one of my favorites because it was the opening track to The Rise & Fall Of Ziggy Stardust. What was wanted was a drum beat to introduce the song itself and to set an atmosphere for the whole album. The idea of the song is that the world is ending in five years, so it was about finding a drumbeat that got that across – which was quite a challenge! I remember going through drum rolls, cymbal crashes and I kind of thought: 'Well if it's the end of the world… I can't be bothered! Haha!' You wouldn't be excited and you wouldn't feel like doing a lot. So, that beat came out of sort of despair and apathy, and then when the band comes in and David starts singing, it just feels right. It felt like a really good beginning, so I was quite proud of that. I nailed the brief by all reports! It's been a lot of people's favorite bit of drumming, which is always nice to hear. They'll say: 'Oh when 'Five Years' starts, it gives my spine a tingle when I hear it!' Well my spine was tingling when I played it!"

"Well Mutt Lange produced that one and obviously he produced Back In Black and Highway To Hell and loads of other albums that I really love. But Foreigner 4… well it’s wrong to like it, but it’s just so good! It’s really synthy and really poppy. It’s got ‘Waiting For A Girl Like You’ and ‘Urgent’ and loads of really big songs which all sound just like Mutt Lange. I love Mutt Lange and I love Foreigner, so really it’s my ultimate album. The way Lou Gramm sings is just so earnest, as if his life depends on it, but when you actually listen to what he’s saying, it’s really trite. So singing that like his life depends on it makes things kind of uncomfortable to actually analyse what you’re listening to, but it feels really good in the moment. Out of all the Foreigner albums, this and Double Vision are the ones I always come back to a lot. I once bought an Agent Provocateur t-shirt ironically and then worked my way back from there (laughs). Got the t-shirt, THEN bought the album and bought the one before that, and loved it!"

"I went to music school and this piece is probably given to every music student as a main example of what medieval music is, so it's not obscure in that world. It's almost funny that I'm putting it in here but I do love Machaut. To me, he's probably more notable for having written these secular love songs, which was pretty cool for that period. But I chose this piece because it's so powerful in an obvious way, just sonically, and what's cool about this performance is that they have these inflections in the voices which they think, I guess, is authentic. But I think that's debatable. It might be true, I'm not really sure. The singers bend the notes: they sing in kind of straight tones and then they bend the notes in a way that you don't really hear in other performances of this piece. It just sounds incredible, authentic or not. There are revolutionary things about this piece and why it's important but I don't remember what they are. When I was writing my song 'Marienbad', I was into madrigals and that straight-tone singing with lots of different voices"

"I saw her at a Mississippi Records evening at Café Oto. I went there because the guy from Mississippi Records had somehow inherited 700 hours of footage by a man who woke up one morning, I think in the 80s when the technology of hand-held cameras had just appeared, and he felt like he had a mission to go and film people, poorer people, and how they expressed themselves, artistically and spontaneously. So we're not talking about people who were trying to make records, just people who play the guitar and sing or whatever, just musically expressing themselves. And that man felt like these people would soon disappear, that society would disappear and it would be extinct. And I think he probably had a very strong intuition that proved to be right. I think technology will soon take us away from just picking up a guitar and singing some songs, spontaneously. It's refreshing because we don't see that on TV, where everything is manufactured and filtered. It felt so good for my brain and my senses to be connected into that, and to witness all of these expressions."