“Listening to this I am transported back to my first encounter with Cocteau Twins. It was at the point in their career when their music was perhaps more easily digestible, although I think their whole body of work is brilliant.

“What amazes me most is how the vocal delivery changed so much over the years, Elizabeth Frazer just got noisier! Like Sinead, her vocal instrument can access certain timbres and tonalities that evoke special emotions in me.

“It was also all about the words that I couldn’t hear. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t hear every word or understand what she was singing about, because she was so emotional; you would get glimpses of words and they would be provocative enough that it really made me think.

“Also, you get everyone singing their own version of what she is singing and putting their own words into the melodies, it’s like you are putting yourself into the song and sharing that emotion with her. What you think she is saying is probably what you need to hear at that moment in time.

“From an artistic point of view that was inspirational for me, I love the idea of the audience injecting something of themselves into the music and it shaped the way I write lyrics now, because I always want people to access the words from their own position, in their own time and way.

“I love the universality that comes with Cocteau Twins. Everyone can find something in it and it pushed me into exploring music and other artists where you have to investigate the song, in the end you build up this really deep personal relationship with it. This song is just magical and fascinating, the wall of sound, the psychedelia and dreaminess of it. I got to convey in person what an inspiration she had been to me, and to fan boy out a little bit.

“I saw a film called Mysterious Skin by Gregg Araki, based on Scott Heim’s 1995 novel about two boys that both experience abuse in their life. It’s about how they both deal with it really differently. The most critical scene in the whole film uses Cocteau Twins’ “Crushed” on the soundtrack and I asked myself, why does her voice also speak to my queer experiences? I don’t know why, but I feel like this music might have impacted a lot of gay people.”

“The artists that have inspired me the most are those that turn out a whole catalogue of meaty music and Al Jourgensen did this more than anyone.

“I was so confused that this guy could start in a new romantic, slightly poppy, synth band and in just 10 years start making music that was arguably some of the heaviest on the planet, that had a big impact on Death Metal and all of these other burgeoning rock genres that were just coming into their own.

“That ballsy and fearless approach towards his artistic vision was inspiring and he was almost always unapologetic, although he did say he regretted his new wave beginnings to which I always thought ‘Why did you say that? You didn’t need to do that.’

“I chose this song because it was one of the ones that said, ‘Oh my god, I am bursting out of the closet’ when I first heard it. At the time I was really exploring an alternative way to be than what the world had presented to me and the paths people were pushing me down, like acting like a boy, doing the things boys do and looking like boys do.

“This song coincided with my choice to say ‘No, I will wear makeup if I want to, wear tights if I want to and wear my hair long.’ So it feels like a special moment for me and like me, Ministry was odd. I loved the chaos they put on stage and I really admired the fact that Jourgenson was interested in a total band of misfits culled from other bands. You had people at moments on stage from Public Image Limited, Suicide and Front 242. It was a very collaborative project and his interest in collaboration was something that always fascinated me.

“When people say ‘Why do you have an untraditional band, why is it a project and not like a ‘real’ band?’ I point to Ministry as one of the first models for this way of thinking. It felt like this bizarre, larger than life thing. It wasn’t just a band, it was about all of these other people, collaborations, side-projects and crosspollination of scenes.

“Jourgenson was doing things with all sorts of people and the work he did on the whole Wax Trax! thing was instrumental to so many scenes. I was DJ’ing in Chicago about a year ago and they put on a festival called Cold Waves, which is an industrial, noisy festival. Revolting Cocks played and I got to meet Luc Van Acker, who did a lot with Jourgensen in Ministry and I asked him what the House scene was like back then. He described these nightclubs, where in the same venue you could hear early Wax Trax! records and then there were DJs dropping industrial music. There was a real mishmash; goth kids and wild characters hanging out with the African Americans and Latinos, a real crosspollination.

“’Burning Inside’, from their 1989 album, The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste has everything; tribal drummers, rhythmic delivery, lots of samples, a really relentless guitar line and hyper processed, freaked out vocals which at that moment in time was totally great for me.”

“The first piece of vinyl I ever owned was “Helter Skelter” by Meat Beat Manifesto and on the flip side was a song called “Radio Babylon”. I remember “Helter Skelter” had some references to Charles Manson, which as a little Goth kid I was fascinated by. This is how I accessed it, through this dichotomy of dark and yet there was something clubby about it, like an amazing collage.

“Jack Dangers was a total genius when it came to sampling and there are certain sounds that are just so uniquely his. I guess as I started to develop a real affinity for dance music people who were able to present something quintessential were heroes. Dangers could produce just a single sound and you would instantly know it’s him.

“I became obsessed with him, even more so when he started touring with their live show, which included a modern dance company. The idea that a ballet was taking place, or that some pirouetting or otherworldly creature was performing in front of him, was cool to me. I was excited by the idea of incorporating bold works of art that are legitimate and untouchable into something grimy, rough and a little bit dangerous.

“’Psyche Out’ was the first Meat Beat Manifesto video I saw and it perfectly captured my spirit of rebellion; I think the lyrics go “and this is what it’s all about, sex, drugs and rock and roll” and that was really OMG at that moment of my life. Dangers was a pioneer of modern dance music and he was obviously influenced by hip hop and funk rhythms and of course sampling.

“In fact, I have just bought an original pressing of Storm the Studio, which is a record I had when I was 15 and incidentally their debut album on Wax Trax! It opens with a report on how the government was responding to the AIDS crisis. As a gay teenager, with an uncle who had died of AIDS not long before its release, I was really impressed by artists that were tackling big issues and taking risks and speaking up for me. I felt that there was an advocate out there for me in some weird way.

“When I first came out as a teenager the first thing that my family said to me was ‘I just don’t want you to die of AIDS’. I thought back then that that was my lot and that’s what was going to happen to me, how the world has changed! I heard that record and I thought I don’t know if he’s gay or not, but he isn’t going to let this happen to me, he is making music about it.

“Years later I had someone from Meat Beat Manifesto in Hercules and Love Affair, so I got to meet Jack Dangers and I got to have my sampling moments with him, it was cool.”

“When I first got into House music I found people who were living their lives, thriving as out and proud gay men and women. I was making my trips to the gay and lesbian centres, going to the youth meetings and trying to find support groups and stuff and people would say to me, ‘There’s this great music that’s played in the clubs we go to.’ Inner City was house music 101.

“Inner City is really the best of the best, a pioneer who figured out how to make great pop songs. When I heard ‘Pennies from Heaven’ I guess it was one of the first times that I heard in House music such a pure and no frills positive message. The lyrics are so pure without being over poetic or metaphorical and it talks about how we can all lift each other up. There’s a line in it that goes something like ‘if you see someone who has lost their way do the best you can to help them out.’

“I have always liked authentic expressions musically, but this song was the first time I heard something so naïve but so sincere and that option to convey something that could encourage people to envisage a better world or build a community interested me, particularly as it was played on a dance floor and could offer a celebratory moment for people.

“I just thought that kind of a pure and positive message can be just as valid and special in terms of an artistic statement as any scathing political commentary or post-modern poetry. I almost feel like today there’s a collective turning your nose up at that kind of artistic expression and output. I get it, it doesn’t have to be a ‘We are the world’, moment but I don’t know, there was a moment in my life when I listened to folk music of the 60s' and 70s' that was selling peace and it was such a beautiful idea, I did look at the world differently and was a little bit happier. What’s wrong with beautiful intentions in art?”