MAGMA Köhntarkösz A&M, 1974 Sometimes I don’t necessarily think you find music, it finds you. I went along to the Roundhouse to see the support band with a friend, and Magma were the headliners. I didn’t really know about them at the time, but my musical outlook was altered from then on. It was totally unusual… it wasn’t playing by the rules that I’d been subjected to by radio or by peers at school. It’s quite funny how they have to be categorised – jazz-rock, prog, fusion – because they’re just their own entity, in my opinion. Magma are the musical equivalent of Marmite. Some people are just gonna scratch their heads, but for me, [Magma founder] Christian Vander is up there as a hero and a musical giant. They are my favourite band.
MAGMA Köhntarkösz A&M, 1974 Sometimes I don’t necessarily think you find music, it finds you. I went along to the Roundhouse to see the support band with a friend, and Magma were the headliners. I didn’t really know about them at the time, but my musical outlook was altered from then on. It was totally unusual… it wasn’t playing by the rules that I’d been subjected to by radio or by peers at school. It’s quite funny how they have to be categorised – jazz-rock, prog, fusion – because they’re just their own entity, in my opinion. Magma are the musical equivalent of Marmite. Some people are just gonna scratch their heads, but for me, [Magma founder] Christian Vander is up there as a hero and a musical giant. They are my favourite band.
ROBERT WYATT Rock Bottom VIRGIN, 1974 It’s probably my most-played album ever. It reminds me of my childhood, and it’s such a beautiful album. Obviously there were things that were upsetting about it, inasmuch as it was the album he made a year after having the accident [that left him paralysed from the waist down], but the poignancy added to the gravity of it. And the melodies are brilliant. If people have never heard that album before, they’re like, ‘What on earth am I listening to?’ Which shows how much of a genius he is. I think even kids today would go, ‘This is beautiful.’ I used to strap mine in the back of the car and play them Caravan and all that, back in the day. A trapped audience, that’s what you need!
ALBERT MARCOEUR Ma Vie Avec Elles BAILLEMONT PRODUCTIONS, 1990 I ended up putting Magma on at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London in 1988, and it resurrected my interest in that style of music, over and above the soul music rabbit hole I’d been down [for most of the 1980s]. In the Magma fan magazine, there was an article on Albert Marcœur. I’d never heard of him, but they were raving about one of his albums, so I put it on and I absolutely hated it! But I’ve learned that usually when you absolutely hate an album, it’s going to become one of your firm favourites. And in three or four more listens’ time, I was just hooked on how clever this guy is. He’s been dubbed the French Frank Zappa. I don’t speak French, but musically he was lighting my brain up.
AUTECHRE Chiastic Slide WARP, 1997 I had a radio show on Phoenix FM, but it was becoming tough to come up with two hours of music every week, especially when I was still playing snooker a bit. So I hit upon the idea of inviting artists I liked to come on the show, and they would also pick all the music. There was a band called Sanguine Hum, and they chose a lot of electronic music, which was a real ear-opener to me. Chiastic Slide I thought was incredible, and really changed my musical leaning. Up until that point, I’d been listening to more angular ‘rock in opposition’ stuff, but I found this quite beautiful in another way. The rhythms were more dancey, but there was an undercurrent of cleverness going on that appealed to me.
CYRUS Inversion BASIC CHANNEL, 1994 As a result of discovering Autechre, I slowly started to listen to a bit more techno, even though I’d never been anywhere [that played it] – I had a day job when the rave scene was going on! Along the way, I discovered dub techno, which I thought was more interesting than some of the absolute boof boof stuff. This is a 17-minute track that just repeats endlessly, and the beauty is in how slowly it evolves. I remember thinking, ‘Maybe if my life had been different and I’d have gone to Berghain or something, this would have been a good thing to have got off on.’ Me and Kavus Torabi were invited to DJ at the Bloc weekender, and overnight we got the reputation for being techno DJs, which was funny.
TEETH OF THE SEA Highly Deadly Black Tarantula ROCKET RECORDINGS We used to DJ the track “Field Punishment” quite a lot. And I’ve got Mike Bourne of Teeth Of The Sea to thank for my next Sliding Doors moment, because I went along to Cafe Oto one night and he was there with a band called Hirvikolari, playing a modular synth. I’d never seen one before, and I was transfixed, thinking, ‘There’s no keyboard, it’s just a load of wires and flashing lights – how is he doing this?’ So I went up to him afterwards and introduced myself and he explained what it was, and that led me to go and buy one for myself. So the next phase of my life became learning a modular synthesiser and realising how much fun it was. And that’s when The Utopia Strong was formed.
THE UTOPIA STRONG Dreamsweeper SELF-RELEASED, 2020 I was quite happy learning how to play a modular synth, but I hadn’t envisaged that once our first album came out, I’d be required to play on a stage. So that was a total mindfuck! We supported Teeth Of The Sea at Oslo in Hackney – it was sold out, and it was the most nerve-wracking thing I’ve ever done in my life. But it went really well, and we decided to put the recording out on privately released vinyl. So Dreamsweeper was the moment when I actually felt like I came of age as a musician. I’d broken free of the shackles of being an ex-snooker player and novelty, to actually there’s something going on here. So I have a very special place in my heart for that particular album.
PHILIP JECK Vinyl Coda I-III INTERMEDIUM RECORDS, 2000 My good friend Stunty has a YouTube channel called StuntrockConfusion, and he has introduced me to so many electronic, experimental, avant-garde composers that otherwise I’d never have known – and Philip Jeck is one of them. He’s a turntablist: multiple turntables, mixing, looping. It makes me want to get my Technics decks out and see what I could achieve, if I had two or three of them, and how you can mix all the stuff together. I’m so upset he passed away [in 2022] because I would have loved to have seen him, I was just a little bit late to the party. But it’s opened up a whole world of music that, once again, I didn’t know existed.
The Utopia Strong’s Doperider is out now on Rocket Recordings
