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Baker's Dozen

Gold Gold Gold Gold Fire Fire Fire Fire: Douglas McCarthy's Favourite LPs
Luke Turner , July 24th, 2019 08:55

As Nitzer Ebb gear up to play Helsinki's Flow Festival, Douglas McCarthy talks Luke Turner through his favourite music, from listening to classical while eating offal on Canvey Island through David Bowie, Killing Joke, Brian Eno, JJ Cale, Thelonious Monk and more

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Talking Heads - Remain In Light
Simon Granger was a huge Talking Heads fan. Once I started hanging out with him in this odd child / man relationship that we had, I was in third or fourth year and he was six or seven years older than me. I would go round his flat and listen to music. I'd fuck with him all the time, he'd go to bathroom and I'd start yelling and bouncing around, pretending I was being kidnapped, leave the door open and hide in a cupboard. He'd be looking around, going 'fucking hell!' and I'd leap out. Obviously I was a puerile, idiot teenager and he was this sensitive, very reserved man. Eno and Talking Heads were the meeting of his two great influences on me. I wanted to choose Before And After Science, which feels like a precursor to Remain In Light. I loved it lyrically, and that it was this mad A-side of frenetic, syncopated repetition and linear-ness, which was what I felt we were trying to do with Nitzer Ebb, and then the B-side just these laconic but also sombre slow songs, but still with some kind of syncopation and rhythmic element to it.