Living in West Hollywood in the early 90s, we usually worked all day in the studio. But without fail, we would drive down Sunset Boulevard until we hit the coast. Venice Beach was one of my favorite places in the world for people watching. I met an amazing artist called RRR down there, who made ironic shaman boxes for wealthy hipsters. He’d ask them for personal items, like a pearl earring, or a small picture, and then sit down with them to discuss their life for a morning. Then he’d create a shaman box, which was a magical representation of their life as a human being. He’d put in feathers, bones, and even iconic paintings, and sell it for a huge price tag.

One of my favorite works that he did was when he covered an entire room, including the TV and sofa, with Jackson Pollock-style paint. And then downstairs, he was customizing Lambrettas and covering them with animal bones and eagle feathers, and then with a glue gun, he’d cover them with fake jewels. He’d sell these Lambrettas to the same kind of people for $25,000.

The inspiration for “Drive West on Sunset” came from those memories of driving down Sunset Boulevard, and people-watching at Venice Beach. The sounds for that track were drawn from that era, using a modular unit called the 4ms ensemble oscillator. It’s a sine wave oscillator, but it’s actually got 16 oscillators, so it plays chords. I know it sounds really weird, but you can then modulate it to play different chords. So the main bleep riff of that track started with that particular oscillator. I then put it through a little effects module called beads, which has a granular delay, / reverb /synthesizer. And after a bit of twiddling, I could hear background traffic noise, just the soft horns that you’d hear from cars driving along Sunset Strip.

And that’s what sparked the whole thing. I just thought about it, and then that landscape came into my mind. That warm, calm feeling of driving at that time, getting into the sea, and being in traffic that’s doing no more than 30-40 miles an hour. Everybody’s just getting along, and the sun’s going down, and it’s 24 degrees. It’s just bloody lovely.