What’s a hidden gem you wish more people knew about?

The Go! Team are a massive bundle of energy and positivity and funfunfun. There are dozens of songs they should be known for but I’ve opted for this as a very typical example - some double dutch, a big horn riff, masssssssive noisy double drums, amazing vocals from Ninja, and almost exactly three minutes long. Perfect.

What song reminds you of your first heartbreak?

I was seventeen. There was a girl who led me on, cheated on her partner with me, insisted she loved me, took the coward's route and pretended I didn't exist to make things easier. Easier for her.

It was drama. Collapse. I tearfully endured it, confiding in no-one. I longed for catharsis, and dramatic lyrics about love teaching me to lie and life teaching me to die was it.

This delicate, gentle, sad album is forever tarnished by that first brush with love.

What’s a remix or cover you like more than the original?

Taking a song and doing something to it to make it new is a really subtle art. The Reflex is the undoubted master of this - I love how he'll take a classic soul/disco/funk track and show the essence of it in entirely unexpected ways, but he lives in a hinterland of questionable legality so his work is not readily available.

Of officially sanctioned and available tracks, this edit of a Belle & Sebastian song by The Avalanches is very special. The original is a classic sixties-tinged guitar pop song with a Thin Lizzy-like guitar line; The Avalanches keep the vocal but change the instrumentation to this incredible joyful tribal celebration recorded with a group of African refugees living in Australia. Makes it a complete different song. As much as I like Belle & Sebastian, I love this version far more.

(If you're interested there's a great making-of article about this track from Wired.)