Baker's Dozen

Artists discuss the 13 records that shaped their lives

3.

Amon Düül II – Wolf City

This is actually a little bit Jeremy Clarkson. You’re playing this in the car, you wind your window down, put your arm out of the window – I’m miming it now, but you can’t see. There’s a sax solo in the track ‘Wolf City’ which is my favourite on the album; the whole track’s a bit directionless and it sort of collapses into a fog in the middle, it’s really murky, and there’s oompah things in the background, fairgroundy – it’s sort of lost. But then it all just coalesces and collapses back into the most perfect, too-brief climax, around this massive saxophone solo. It should be naff; I remember I picked that track out for something to write for a magazine years ago, and I wrote ‘This shouldn’t work, the whole thing should be really naff’. And then I went and made a record with a massive sax solo in the middle of it. [laughs] So that’s had an influence, without realising it. But the whole thing, it is a good album to drive like Clarkson to, I guess. That’s its function in my life, maybe.

Selected in other Baker’s Dozens: Lord Spikeheart, Tom Ravenscroft
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