Tangerine Dream – Rubycon
When I was a kid I heard all this strange electronic music that came from Germany on pirate radio and on the Peel show and it seemed like music from another planet and I wanted it. Then one afternoon I was listening to Radio 1 and Annie Nightingale played one whole side of Rubycon and it was life changing. I said to her, many years later, "that was incredible!" and she said, "oh John used to do that all the time, he was the first to do that." But it was like Annie became a pirate for one moment and took over the whole of Radio 1. That meant a lot. That was the spirit of making music to me. You do what feels right. If you want to play half an hour, you do it and accept the consequences but you have to do what the music tells you to do. Tangerine Dream made these extraordinary, electronic soundscapes. Is it an animal or is it a machine? Tangerine Dream crossed over that a lot. And then Annie played the entire side and blew my head.

They don’t do that anymore on Radio 1.

[chuckles] Nope. Sadly, they don’t. But that’s one of the reasons why I like 1Xtra. That’s Radio 1 as I remember it. It’s more pirate. People just playing the music that they are passionate about.