James Elkington: “I was crazy about

Sonic Youth”

How did you free your mind to the point where you were able to make music without any end goal or audience in mind? In this particular instance, it was because I already had a couple of records finished. It’s a bit like when you’re at school and you’ve got your homework done early: I could do whatever I wanted with my time. I’ve always had these little experiments in the back of my mind. And to be honest, when I started recording in my teens, that’s how I did it – I wouldn’t write beforehand, I’d just hit record and start playing. But I’d never got back to that teenage joy-of-discovery thing.

What was the thinking behind using your guitar as percussion? Partly because it was the quickest way to go. If you’re sat in front of a microphone with a guitar and you’re trying to quickly record things, it’s nice if you don’t have to get up or move around too much. But I also found that using the guitar as a percussion instrument gave quite a pleasing background; it gave a pulse to things but didn’t get in the way. It reminded me of old Moondog records.

As well as the nod to library music,

Me Neither

is sometimes reminiscent of folksy kids TV series like Green… I was born in

Camberwick

’71, so I’m sure that’s in there. I have kids, and they can’t fathom the weirdness of that stuff! You show a nine-year-old Bagpuss now and they think you’re insane. But there’s other things in there too: when I was a teenager, I was crazy about Sonic Youth and I always used to love the searching qualities of those dissonant tunings. Even hitting the guitar with a stick is pretty Sonic Youth. So it’s Bagpuss versus Sonic Youth? Yeah – Bagpuss wins!