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Baker's Dozen

Magical Experiences: James Holden's Favourite Albums
Rory Gibb , June 5th, 2014 15:08

Following last year's feral The Inheritors album, Border Community label head James Holden is about to take his newly developed live show on tour, including to Field Day and Sonar Barcelona. Rory Gibb catches up with him to discuss thirteen favourite and formative albums, improvisation and atheist spirituality

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Various - Trance Europe Express

Even the first few songs of it - that was the moment when it was like, 'Oh, this is pretty good, isn't it? I didn't even know this existed and it's brilliant, I need to find all the other music like this.' For the sixteen-year-old me, that sort of age, it was the most exciting thing that happened in that whole year. It was such a big thing that I went more into it, became more focused on looking for that feeling, until I realised that you have to look for that feeling in a different way, elsewhere. To someone whom that particular compilation wasn't important to at the time, it's maybe quite a random selection of tracks. But that Black Dog 'Xeper' track was I think the first polyrhythmic music I'd ever really noticed, probably ever encountered; understanding that they'd done something there that was interesting. That was the beginning of understanding what I was doing in trying to make music.