"“I really relate to the particular type of mental instability that Dostoyevsky describes in pretty much all of his work. A character starts talking, and things start getting out of control and become increasingly animated, intense and disturbing. It reads like an extreme version of how I feel whenever I have to interact with humans. The Idiot is probably my favourite of his works, because I love Nastasya Filipovna, Aglaya Ivanovna Epanchin, Rogozhin… I think a lot of my friends think I’m a bit like Nastasya! Anyway, it’s the most cartoonish and absurd of everything I’ve read by Dostoyevsky, and the best distillation of insanity as a virtue. A Baz Luhrmann-esque treatment of this book would make an incredible film.”"

"No one knows about them, but I've been talking about them for years: this is the one with 'Loud Green Song', 'Singing The Blues On Reds'. People associate me with straightahead rock'n'roll, but this is the stuff that I liked - I couldn't play it and I didn't try to play it. I don't know how I heard about Patto, but they seemed like irreverent guys. The singer, Mike Patto was also in Spooky Tooth and Boxer - you have to look at Boxer's album cover - and he died of cancer. Ollie Halsall was one of the best guitarists there was, left handed and he played unbelievably. I always liked songs better than I liked groups. Groups will let you down, but songs stand up on their own."

"I really love hip hop and I thought if I had to pick one album it'd have to be the first Wu-Tang album just for the personalities, and the real rawness and lo-fi urgency about it. I love the audacity of having an interview with the band in the middle of the record. It's something that I think independent music scene should start doing… in the middle of the next Pastels album, like, Stephen and Katrina start talking about how good they are. I need to make it so. I don't think I really got properly into hip hop until the last five years. Something suddenly clicked where it really made sense. These days I like Danny Brown and A$AP Rocky, things like that."

"It’s a two-disc of live performances. For the most part, I was never really a fan of live music on records, but this one takes all the Talking Heads songs and it totally improves them. You feel the beat more. It’s a solid buy. If you could just come up on that, the two discs are amazing. It’s almost 40 songs. Every single one of them is really rad. A lot of my music that I like puts energy in your body or makes you want to dance or break something or just go mosh or jump around. This is one of those ones that you can put on in the summertime and next thing you know, you’re dancing by the pool."

"Eric Rohmer may be underrated as a director. His films are rightly known for their endless talking, and for their intricate, ambiguity-filled exploration of contemporary romance and relationships. Yet he is also a precise and inventive director. His deceptively straightforward films are rich and cinematic: every cut, every decision to shoot in long shot or shot–reverse shot, and every object, costume, and piece of furniture reveals something about the emotional and intellectual subtext. Filmed in lush, crisp black and white, during a snowy Parisian winter, by the great Nestor Almendros, this is the most beautiful of Rohmer’s films. And the good news is that in order to obtain this film, you’ll have to get the astonishing box set Six Moral Tales."

"“Everybody Hurts” is a song that came to me fairly late in my life. As I was maturing into a young adult I started to really fall in love with R.E.M. and find out about their history as a group. This can be read as a kind of simple and sad tune of course, but it’s surpassed that for me. “When you’re talking about iconic frontmen, Michael Stipe is the one and it’s all in his voice: there’s no song that he could sing when you wouldn’t know it was him. I love the lyrics and the melody but I think I’m always attracted to the vocals above everything else. Michael Stipe’s voice is so unique and that’s what I love about R.E.M"

"This is the album with 'Brown Shoes Don't Make It'. What colour shoes are you wearing? Black? Phew. It was the absurdity that I liked in Frank Zappa - this album also had 'Call Any Vegetable'. It was stuff that just didn't make any sense, but they played so well they must know what they're talking about. That was why I liked Soft Machine as well: "Hope for happiness! Happiness! Happiness!" What? I never knew what it was. And that was like The Sensational Alex Harvey Band and Arthur Brown, too. Unpredictability is what I like most in rock bands. But only when it's done well. Like with The Who - they had great pop songs, and then they had 'Boris The Spider'."

"As a huge David Bowie fan who was at the last Ziggy Stardust gig – when he said he was quitting, I remember turning round to my friend and saying, “As if!” – this BBC documentary from a couple of years later felt very special. And very new. It’s the document of Bowie in America, and gets you so close. He’s so vulnerable, sniffing – obviously taking cocaine – and looks like an alien; but when talking Alan Yentob through his old tour outfits, he’s still something of a chirpy cockney lad. The film also shows the sharpness and originality of his musical mind, especially when he’s directing his amazing backing singers through their parts. It’s fascinating to see him at work as a musician"