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Baker's Dozen

Rope Ladders From Heaven: William Doyle's Favourite Records
Daniel Dylan Wray , March 17th, 2021 10:10

Ahead of his excellent latest album, Great Spans of Muddy Time, William Doyle - fka East India Youth, whose debut EP was first ever record released on The Quietus Phonographic Corporation - talks us through his Baker’s Dozen. William Doyle photo by Ryan MacPhail

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Talking Heads – Remain In Light
As a teenager I had seen the ‘Once In A Lifetime’ video and I recall thinking they seemed like a great band but I didn’t have the means at that point to get into their records. It's when I started downloading music I thought I'd check them out. I remember downloading the record knowing that ‘Once In A Lifetime’ was on it and feeling like I'm in safe hands. But nothing can prepare you for ‘Born Under Punches’. Nothing. Still to this day it's one of the best openings to a record, if not the best. I used to ride my bike to school at that point and I remember leaving my close and going down this hill and pressing play and nearly coming off my bike. I could not believe it. I really could not believe this was happening to me. I had to stop. I was just thinking, what the fuck is this? It's absolutely amazing.

The first four tracks of that record are just non-stop. ‘The Great Curve’ is so much faster than the two tracks before - they just keep building it, it's perfect sequencing. I felt like in my early teenage years preceding that I regressed into stuff I felt like I should be into at the time – like emo and pop punk. To be reintroduced to music that was very creative and artistic was a big job for me at that moment. It was a weird, isolating experience, really, because no one else gave a fuck about Talking Heads. It wasn't a shared experience. I just remember hammering that record. I just couldn't get away from it. It still blows my mind.