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Baker's Dozen

Alan Wilder Of Recoil & Depeche Mode's 13 Favourite LPs
Luke Turner , May 9th, 2011 07:29

As Short Circuit fast approaches, we talk to Alan Wilder about his 13 favourite records, and how they shaped his work in post-Depeche Mode project Recoil

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Pink Floyd - Meddle
I think this album is an indicator of what they were about to do; it's not their most polished work. For me, it's more interesting than Dark Side Of The Moon. There's a lot of debate about what's the best Floyd period, but I didn't really get it with Syd Barrett. I was probably too young, and if I'd have grown up with it maybe it would have been a different thing, but I only discovered them after he was gone. I'm quite into sound production and design – all those things important to me – and I think when Gilmour came to Floyd, between he and Roger Walters they focused a lot more on those aspects than they had with Syd, when it was much more about his songs and Englishness, and that kind of thing.

Again, they were doing something very different to anyone else at that time – you can hear electronics in there, and the influence of classical music. It's got a very repetitive, synthesised sound, and the bass riffs with the echo have a very hypnotic groove that underpins it. We basically nicked that idea for a track called 'Clean' on Violator