Luciano Cilio - Dell Universo Assente
This is one of the more recent things on this list that I have got into and there's not an awful lot I know about him other than he killed himself a few years after making the record. I haven't been able to find anything else he's done. I don't know how I came about it but it contains this immense beauty and incredible sadness that is haunting. Most music is a distraction when you want to write but I was working on a film project in Corsica last year and I remember getting up before sunrise and walking down these rock formations on the beach where you're really secluded from the outside world, it's just you the rocks and water splashing. I brought one of those portable Bluetooth speakers and listened to the record again and again each morning whilst writing. I think the outcome from some of those days ended up being chopped up and used on This World Is Not Enough. I've found there are very few pieces of music that turn your attentions to your surroundings or open you up to them. Something like William Basinski's The Disintegration Loops, if you listen to that on the New York subway it really turns your attention to the passengers and the looks on their faces and it makes you wonder about things but a lot of other music you'd listen to on the New York subway pretty much will make it easier to turn inside your own head and ignore what is around you.