The Upsetters – Black Board Jungle

The stripped-down sound of house and its 'studio as an instrument' ethos, as well as its flagrant misuse of machinery reminded me of the approach of dub pioneers like the late great Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry. So, when I finally got round to making music of my own, I often tried to emulate those techniques with varying degrees of success. Some of my back catalogue makes me cringe, I can hear these attempts to make something authentically new but there's too much indecision clouding the outcome, so they fail to become fully realised. Sometimes though, it went quite well, but I think it took me a while to really learn the lessons that dub taught. Relax. Less is more. Let it breath. Now I think I can better filter that influence into something more organic and personal.

Music is nothing without sharing, so this LP also transports me to my friend, and supplier of musical guidance, David Hill's flat in West London. Cross eyed under his glass table with sunlight piercing the shutters, the sound of the future vibrating through the speakers from 1973.