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Baker's Dozen

A Gorgeous Haunting: Tom Ravenscroft's Favourite Records
Ben Graham , August 23rd, 2023 09:06

From 90s grunge and hip hop to contemporary ambient electronica, DJ Tom Ravenscroft tells Ben Graham about the 13 albums that give him the most listening pleasure, and developing his own musical interest away from the influence of his dad, the late John Peel. Tom Ravenscroft image courtesy of the BBC.

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Dominik Eulberg – Heimische Gefilde
It’s techno, but it's techno you could listen to at home, on a nice stereo. Dominik Eulberg lives in this nature reserve in Germany. He's obsessed with wildlife. I think he was telling us once that he has a studio in the middle of nowhere, and he looks out of the window and has deer wandering into the studio. It's almost some kind of weird fantasy world that he lives in.

This record arrived around the time that I was settling into London. I was listening to it rather dangerously whilst cycling around, but it just combined lots of things I really like. It's basically him giving you a guide to birds, so you get all this beautiful birdsong followed by techno and also him speaking in a rather lovely soft German accent. It combined all these things I loved in one record and that I never thought would be combined – birdsong and techno. I did a film degree, and we spent a lot of our time sitting in the dark watching obscure German films. I became indoctrinated into falling asleep to soft German voices and ever since, I've had a love for that. I have no idea what he's saying, and I don't know what the birds are, but when I'm wandering around the countryside, I hear some of the birds from the tracks as if they're celebrities. I'm like, ‘you're on the Heimische Gefilde album! You're on that tune!’ So, it's kind of penetrated the real world for me. I'd like to hear more birdsong techno records if there are any out there.