Influences: Jack Cheshire

I was always drawn to Laurie Anderson. As a child I remember seeing ‘United States Live’ on vinyl, the front cover with a light bulb in her mouth, this strange magical being, and thinking I have to listen to this. It was ‘Big Science’ that I really fell in love with though. This track in particular, the eerie mystery to the opening monologue, the pulse of the marimbas and the sweeping violin melodies. For me, it always conjures some weird supernatural ceremony being played out before a bewildered audience.
‘..and they were all free, and they were all asking themselves the same question, what is behind that curtain?’
She is a singular artist, totally inspiring.

‘Tago Mago’ was the first Can album I ever heard. As a teenager I relied heavily on friends for discovering new music, and I remember being in my mates basement room, stoned out of my mind, listening to the entire album with him in awe struck silence. Part of what I loved about it, apart from the incredible musicianship and sheer imaginative scope, was their ability to be so dark without it feeling heavy. Listening to this album was a terrifying experience for me, I was genuinely spooked. But I loved it, it was exhilarating. It’s the most genuinely psychedelic music I’ve ever heard, and part of that for me is their ability to simultaneously straddle darkness and light. I love everything about this track, Jaki Liebezeit’s drumming is insane, on another planet, the chiming sparse guitars and Damo Suzukis words and delivery.

I stumbled across this on VHS as a child and played it, with my brother and sister in the room. Scared the living shit out of all of us, but we watched the whole thing, transfixed. I remember it was my first proper window into this scary, seedy, alluring adult world. Sex, porno theatres, murder, superstition, transformation, after life plus it had an amazing sound track. First time I heard Creedence ‘Bad Moon Rising’, Van Morrison ‘Moondance’, Sam Cooke ‘Blue Moon’ and the Marcels ‘Blue Moon’, all fucking ace. I don’t think my little brother has ever forgiven me for disturbing his infant mind, but it always sticks in my head as some kind of watershed moment for me.

When I arrived at music college in Liverpool as an electric bass player I thought I was pretty good. Then someone introduced me to Jaco Pastorius and my mind was blown. I fell in love with his first solo record, but this track in particular really stood out for me. The bass and percussion set up this dreamy, hypnotic, polyrhythmic mesh for the French horn to swim on top of. Every time I hear it I zone in and out of specific passages in his part, it’s mesmeric hearing those fast harmonic repetitions. The percussion plays off him, kinds of flutters around with plenty of subtle variation, feels very free and playful. And French horn is such a beautiful instrument, with these long graceful lines. Always felt there was something really exotic about this track.

The first time I heard ‘Tender Buttons’ I was transfixed. I think I was in a social setting, but I couldn’t listen to anything anyone was saying, it was just mind bogglingly good. I fell in love with this record there and then and my love for it has only ever grown. Apart from the minimalist psychedelic space kitsch sound and production, Trish Keenan’s songwriting, lyrics and voice are just perfect; subtly layered, mysterious and profound. I love her use of imagery and the Englishness of it all. There’s an eerie haunting quality to the whole record that makes me feel like I’m staring through some kind of portal into the void, but it’s all wrapped up in this timeless pop construct that makes it so accessible and easy. A truly great album.

Just before I started work on our new record I read ‘Infinite Jest’. It starts out as an absolute mind fuck, as disorientating as anything I’ve ever read, but then something clicks and the rewards are immense. For me it feels like a distillation of the human condition from some kind of higher intelligence. Part satire, and in places very very funny, it’s the stuff about addiction and mental health that really got me. Appreciating the complexities of depression, and the human need for gratification, validation and also just to need. Some of the descriptive passages on drug experiences are just perfect, the cerebral labyrinthes people find themselves in. After hearing about David Foster Wallaces life and eventual suicide, I couldn’t help but feel this book was more than a work of fiction to him. A masterpiece for sure.

One of my best mates uncle had this great vinyl collection, and it was round at his house that I first heard this record when I was a teenager. He put it on, and I’d heard some great funk (The Meters, Aaron Neville, Professor Longhair) and some jazz, but nothing like this. It was so loose and precise at the same time, with all these head swimming polyrhythms and so much swagger. Fela records are mesmeric, you get lost in them. I remember zoning in on each part and following the precise pattern that each player takes and loops, and then coming back to the collective shimmering whole. It’s the best dance music I’ve ever heard, impossible not to get caught up in, totally psychedelic. ‘Shakara’ is the first Fela Kuti record I ever heard, my window into Afrobeat, so it’ll always be one of my all time favourites.

Rain Dogs is an album I’ve returned to throughout my life. First heard on a cassette in the car driving up north with my family. So brilliantly strange in so many ways; the weird percussion (which, as a child, I always pictured as being skeletal, like sections of vertebrae), Marc Ribot’s wonky skittish guitars, but mainly the disturbed magical world it conjures, that you get to inhabit for a bit. I love the lyrics, the delirious half crazed delivery, but also the variety of sounds and styles on the record, that all become part of this incredibly singular sound.

I love the Doors. It’s an obvious choice, but I’d be lying if I didn’t include them on an influences list. Ever since I was a kid I listened to them in awe. Amazing band. The first two records, THE DOORS & STRANGE DAYS are incredible. I picked this track because the shit was really hitting the fan for them at this stage (everyone hated the Soft Parade and Morrison had various lawsuits hanging over his head) but they still came up with this single, which is one of their best and most danceable pieces, in my opinion.

Apparently ‘Astral Weeks’ was recorded over a weekend after a couple of rehearsals, and there’s this ‘this is the first time we’re playing this’ excitement that comes across, that is captured so perfectly. The musicians involved are obviously given a huge amount of freedom, and they’re these great jazz players, playing wildly over beautiful songs. The bass playing in particular, is so out there, but it works. Love the way this track is constructed, the arrangements, the vibraphone, Van’s lyrics and croon. Always felt this album was high art, there’s a mysticism to it that I find endlessly inspiring; great record.