Engineers: Daydream Vacation

1) John Martyn – Just Now (Bless The Weather, 1971)
This is on the Bless The Weather album and I first heard it when I was 19, four years younger than he was when he recorded it and it's one of the songs that has had the most profound effect on me. I think it was the combination of the new found maturity in his voice expressing feelings of sadness and loss juxtaposed with a tone of acceptance and hope that originally affected me both philosophically and musically. Some songs that you have liked can lose relevance but this still has the same effect on me whenever I hear it.

2) George Harrison – All Things Must Pass (All Things Must Pass, 1970)
Interestingly, this has a similar chord progression to the John Martyn song and also explores themes of loss and acceptance. As with many of his songs, (perhaps because he was in the biggest band in the world) it comes from a much less personal perspective and although it's not his most directly spiritual set of lyrics it has a universal sentiment that I find very appealing. He made the first recording of this on his 26th birthday during the recording of the White Album, as The Beatles were falling to pieces around him.

3) Dion – In And Out Of The Shadows (Born To Be With You, 1975)
I love music that creates a believable snapshot of a particular time even though you know that it's essentially a fantasy. I'm not sure of the exact reasons but this to me sounds like a romantic (yet not sentimental) portrayal of late 50s New York – perhaps the main thing that Dion and the album's producer, Phil Spector had in common. Apparently the first meeting before making the album was in a barely lit room where Spector stepped in and out of darkness mumbling the lyrics at a reticent Dion to illustrate why they should make it together. In light of recent events this is more than a little creepy, although it was probably just the kind of PR spin that made him such a successful and notorious producer.

4) The Beach Boys – Big Sur (Landlocked bootleg 1971)
The version I like best is on the Landlocked bootleg as I think the one on Holland is possibly a cynical attempt to cash in on the Neil Young – Harvest trend of the day. This again creates a wonderful fantasy of the subject matter and although Mike Love's lyrics only deal with it on a subjective, superficial level I think the arrangement of this is one of the best examples of why I love their music so much. It has a hazy, intangible feeling of wonderment in regard to the landscape and suggests how the pioneers may have felt when they were exploring the new world. I hope it gets a proper release at some point.

5) Sonic Youth - Teenage Riot (Daydream Nation, 1988)
This is just one of those brilliant tracks that never loses it edge. Sonic Youth get a lot of credit for being an art/punk/experimental group but people seldom remark that they are very advanced musically. I love modal tunings and get a lot of my inspiration for the louder stuff we do from them.

6) Fleetwood Mac – Walk A Thin Line (Tusk, 1979)
It pleases me to see Tusk getting the respect it deserves these days, as many people always used to react to Fleetwood Mac with a raised eyebrow. Lindsay Buckingham's solo tracks on it have economical production and the rich fidelity on this is offset by haphazard, double tracked drumming. Nonetheless it expresses a feeling of serenity in the face of turbulent events, which is a mood I've attempted to tap into on our new album.

7) Big Star – September Gurls (Radio City, 1974)
Another fantasy song that in reality was created in an entirely different universe from the one it depicts. It has an elegiac tone musically that is offset by youthful, anglophile energy in the production, playing and singing. I'm more of a fan of #1 Record and especially Third/Sister Lovers but this is my favourite song by them because it perfectly nails everything that is great about their music in 3 minutes. I'm not the biggest fan of guitar solos generally but this has my favourite of all time on it.

8) The Blue Nile – Over the Hillside (Hats, 1989)
This conversely has a circumstantial feel and even though it comes very close, it never resorts to sentimentality. To me it feels like walking through town after an uneventful and depressing rainy night out, but instead of losing hope or looking for hope elsewhere it celebrates and finds comfort in familiar urban surroundings. I only heard this for the first time a few years ago, but within the first few bars I knew it would be a firm favourite for a long time.

9) Van Morrison – Astral Weeks (Astral Weeks, 1968)
I'm always highly suspicious of songwriting that cites stream of conscious lyric writing as a driving force, as it's often to blame for a lot of badly written rubbish, but this has something special that (unlike many examples) completely justifies its status as a classic. Its captivating atmosphere completely draws you in to his dreamlike world and even though you may not necessarily understand what he's describing, you are completely enthralled by the enigmatic passion of the delivery. There were already leanings towards jazz in the New York folk scene, but this created the template that the likes of Tim Buckley drew inspiration from for years to come.

10) Serena-Maneesh – Don’t Come Down Here (Serena-Maneesh, 2006)
He might think me foolish to say this, but I think Emil Nikolaisen is musically the modern day equivalent of the great European composers like Grieg and Sibelius. I love the image of the band and I think that they are hands down the best rock and roll band in the world at the moment. But the best thing about them is his use of seemingly random textures to create complex and sometimes dissonant harmonics that completely elevate them from whatever genre they might get lumped in with.