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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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Amon Düül II - Wolf City

This is actually a little bit Jeremy Clarkson. You're playing this in the car, you wind your window down, put your arm out of the window - I'm miming it now, but you can't see. There's a sax solo in the track 'Wolf City' which is my favourite on the album; the whole track's a bit directionless and it sort of collapses into a fog in the middle, it's really murky, and there's oompah things in the background, fairgroundy - it's sort of lost. But then it all just coalesces and collapses back into the most perfect, too-brief climax, around this massive saxophone solo. It should be naff; I remember I picked that track out for something to write for a magazine years ago, and I wrote 'This shouldn't work, the whole thing should be really naff'. And then I went and made a record with a massive sax solo in the middle of it. [laughs] So that's had an influence, without realising it. But the whole thing, it is a good album to drive like Clarkson to, I guess. That's its function in my life, maybe.