The Quietus - A new rock music and pop culture website

Baker's Dozen

Amorphous Choices: Mira Calix' Favourite Music
Jude Rogers , May 8th, 2019 12:42

Jude Rogers quizzes sound sculptor Mira Calix about her favourite albums, from MBV to Britten, Stravinsky to Laura Cannell, and PJ Harvey to the bountiful joys of the Warp back catalogue

An_electric_storm_-_white_noise___1557318789_resize_460x400

An Electric Storm - White Noise
As I've just released a collage album, I thought I had to finish my list with the ultimate one! I'd always thought this album was made in two weeks, with Delia Derbyshire and the gang holed up in a room getting high, but that's another myth – apparently it took a year to make six tracks, although they had to rush the last one out in a day. God, I've played Love Without Sound on so many mixes. The way it opens up your ears to the Radiophonic Workshop and musique concrete – and this was from a group who were bloody signed to Island Records! Not that their efforts sold more than three copies, or something, but that's that. It's become such a cult record, and rightly so. 

So many musicians I like do collage with sound in this way. I nearly picked the Dirty Projectors for this list – the way they record ensembles and chop them up into bits and play over it live – I love that stuff. Hip hop artists like Kool Keith, LL Cool J  and Ol' Dirty Bastard from the Wu Tang Clan do that too. It's like they're taking scissors to a magazine. And I've loved doing so much of that with Utopia. It's been like living inside a real collage, and I made the videos and artwork myself this time, too. And coming back to Warp to do it… I mean, I've not really been away, but is special to me. I became who I was there – all these different people – and I'm still taking them with me.