2. Aphex TwinDrukqs

I lived in London when this record came out. I was sort of mooching around aimlessly, fasci-nated by music making, and following my nose. [Super Furry Animals’ Welsh language album] Mwng had come out a year earlier, and when Drukqs came out with all of these Cornish words on it I was so excited because you never saw Cornish anywhere.

It might not be Aphex’s best album in terms of how listenable it is, but I love Aphex’s humour, and his ability to be flippant, but also intense, and to acknowledge just how ridiculous the whole thing might be. He has the confidence to just say, “there you go,” and to push the listen-er, deliberately, to the point that you don’t want to listen any longer. He’s got a fluidity, a light touch, and he captures such variation of emotion.

He’s a very emotional artist, and there’s something very Cornish about this. There’s a poignan-cy and a deep emotion but also a hardness and a toughness. Maybe this is an outcome of cir-cumstances and the community. You’ve just got to get on with it, and being able to accept that aggression is something that I love. The contrast is what I enjoy, and the playfulness is some-thing I think is essential. I love the domestic element too — the answering machine message from his mum and dad. He creates something that is so intensely emotional, but then has the courage to say, “I’m not necessarily being earnest!”