Influences – Tom Ravenscroft

It still consumes me to this day, on first hearing the band as a child I can remember being so confused by what on earth was happening. I danced endlessly to it and could carry on doing so forever.

It’s so idiotically cool, it makes me think of going to my first festivals and wanting to be a part of everything I could see around me. Sonic Youth were at every festival I went to when I was young, it’s not quite the same when they’re not.

I wasn’t a fan of Britpop so spent most of the mid to late 90s listening to hardcore, drum & bass & jungle. This was the first record me and my mates plucked up the courage to go into a record shop and buy.

I asked for Jazz for Christmas one year, I think I probably thought it was a cool thing to say, I got given loads of it and little else. I found this track pretty early on and didn’t listen to the rest for sometime. It’s exciting as hell.

On arrival at university it quickly became obvious I was going to be bored, I borrowed money, bought decks and spent three years learning to scratch records. This was one of my guides.

In 2000 drum and bass got really nasty and I loved it, the sounds brought on by Ed Rush & Optical’s Wormhole but faster.

I was briefly the coolest kid in school when I bought this record, it was a 10” too which for some reason was way more hardcore. I took it everywhere with me, no idea why, just had to have it on me at all times.

My favourite opening three notes of a song ever I think, it’s pretty dramatic stuff. All their records are great but this is my favourite. It’s really very awesome.

They were one of the things that got me back into noisy bands, those early gigs were something else, people were stood around with their mouths open. I wish they were still around.

A good reminder that you may not have heard your favourite record ever yet.