Music!

Throughout the whole writing process there's been albums I've returned to often when writing; markedly

Burial - Burial

 His first outing. Dark, bass laden, mournful vocals, dirty loops. A defining classic.

Burial - Untrue

My favourite Burial album. This is absolute mastery. Everyone from the UK has undoubtedly heard Archangel but every song is of that standard or better. Favourite has to be Untrue or Homeless, how can something be blissful and bleak at the same time?

Charles Mingus - The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady

My favourite jazz album. The cerebral, intense, evocative masterpiece by the irascible genius that is Charles Mingus. After working through the more approachable jazz albums like Kind of Blue or Time Out I recommend everyone to listen to this album at least once. It is like listening to someone's mind pulling apart then coming back together. A lot of ideas came out whilst this was playing.

Aesop Rock - Labor Days

The lyrical tongue twister, metaphor magician, allegorical alchemist that is Aesop Rock. This is him at the height of his powers with Blockhead laying down some of the most lush, cinematic pieces of music in the history of hip hop. His verbosity always gets my mind moving. A perfect muse.

There were many more and tons of youtube surfing to find the perfect atmospheric tracks, which I must say a lot of effort went into! But half of the time I was writing in sweet silence.