Gorgeous: Graham Massey Of 808 State's Favourite Albums | Page 14 of 14 | The Quietus

Baker's Dozen

Artists discuss the 13 records that shaped their lives

13. HomelifeFlying Wonders

I was involved with Homelife, but I was more of a session musician in a way as I wasn’t involved in the writing of the music; I don’t see it as my band. The core of the band was Paddy Steer and Tony Burnside, who’d both been in Yargo, and a musician called Simon King who was from London and had been in many bands.

Computers had just reached that phase where you could do proper recordings on them. It wasn’t Pro-Tools but you could do decent hard drive recordings. It was an interesting mix of people of varying age groups and genders, which made it very rich. There was a singer called Seaming To who’d appeared on records by Mr Scruff and she had this incredible octave range, and I played bass clarinet.

It was like a digital orchestra and it felt a bit like Sly And The Family Stone and it crossed the jazz line as well. The whole album has the feel of some Mediterranean place that doesn’t exist, and place to wallow in; it’s very languid. It’s Impressionist music that came from a terraced house in Manchester!

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