10. Metropolis ShanghaiShowboat To China

Winter & Winter is a German label who are still making the maddest albums. This is set in China in the 1920s, but played today. I would love to make an album like this that really takes you somewhere aurally. There’s a great nostalgia, a romantic feeling of being in this decadent period – I’m sure they’re in an opium den. I went to China before it opened up and there was a hotel in Shanghai where they had a jazz band that I’m sure had members from the 1920s they were so old. I wish I’d recorded it, it sounded like Tom Waits’ band, it was that wild a sound. This album feels like that – authentic, however they’ve created it. I can’t think of another album that transports me like this. I am drawn to decadent music. I’m fascinated by people who lived recklessly, but when people are like that there’s an instability that I don’t have. I can’t fake being that lost because I’m really not. I love that when it’s genuine, and it’s really intoxicating to be around people like that.