I started DJing at a gentleman’s club, among other places. I got one of my first DJ gigs there because they were playing Philip Glass. I got talking to the promoter and he said, ‘do you want to play next month? Our regular DJ has just died.’ This was the start of 2000, people were still dying from HIV. 

I saved up money to buy vinyl decks. But there was certain music you couldn’t get on vinyl so I’d use CDJs. On CDJs you could press pause, and it’d make this amazing stuttering sound.

I was regularly going to Sound 323 in Highgate, where they had a clearance section. I recognised the name Achim Wollscheid. It was £3. I took it home and within the first few seconds, I was like, this is that sound. This is that juddering CDJ sound! And someone’s made a record from it! 

[At the time] I was really inspired to make music but I didn’t know how. Then about 2000, at a garden centre in Wallingham with my family, there’s some ‘make your own music’ software for £9.99. I took it home, made this Pan Sonic-type music, but couldn’t work out how to get it off the computer. I recorded by putting a portable cassette player against the speaker and shouting at the right points. Kim Gordon once wrote this article about how someone being on stage means you’ve already accepted something about what they’re going to do; how seeing someone do something confirms that it can be done. So now there’s this sound I can make – this glitching sound – and it sounds like the music I think I want to make.