L. Pierre [Lucky Pierre] - The Island Come True (2013)

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Across his many projects past and present, it’s under the moniker of L. Pierre that Aidan Moffat has perhaps best opened up the bare bones of his thirst for sonic exploration. The Island Come True is Moffat’s fourth album as L. Pierre and is a work assembled from the vast cavern of his assembled field recordings and samples, a collage that works as a sonic patchwork of the 39 year-old’s own mind. A popular lyrical raconteur whether as one half of Arab Strap, writing under his own name or when collaborating with Bill Wells - as on last year’s Scottish Album Of The Year award winner Everything’s Getting Older - it’s as this carnation where the true extent of his musical eclecticism is revealed.

As such, the album is as a dreamscape, with fragments of classical works, drum samples, instructional speeches and, in a link back to his last album, recordings of nature. Electronics elements previously employed on past albums have been discarded, the album in its entirety consisting only of these found sounds. - www.melodic.co.uk/

The majority of our most beloved children's stories weren't written with kids' gloves. From Hans Christian Andersen to the Brothers Grimm, the fantastical has always intermingled in equal measure with the terrifying, in ways often more grisly and frank than we remember outside of Angela Carter adaptations. As the former mouthpiece for the now defunct Arab Strap, Aidan Moffat has never been stranger to this sort of balance of ugliness and beauty. AsL. Pierre (formerly Lucky Pierre), the moniker used for his now decade-long running found-sound project, he's leaned much harder on the latter.

With The Island Come True, his fourth L. Pierre release and the first since 2007's Dip, Moffat has found a spiritual kinship with fellow Scot and author J.M. Barrie, most famous for his Peter Pan stories. The album takes it's name from a chapter from Peter & Wendy, and it too is grimmer than you probably remember: For all the adventure and wonder crammed into its few thousand words, the segment is littered with sorrow, longing and blood. Using crackling piano suites, field recordings, found loops and swelling bits of dusty classical pieces, Moffat has crafted something similarly antique and unexpectedly dark, a moving if not fractured album that feels congruent with Barrie's mix of the fantastic and the fearful.

On previous L. Pierre recordings, Moffat was keen to toy around with his collages, adding his own electronic flourishes to help round things out. But on The Island Come True (as hinted at on Dip), he's done away with any sort of tinkering, leaving his combinations of these existing pieces to speak for themselves. "There's something beautiful in hearing the grit and hiss of old recordings," Moffat has said of the album, and it's not hard to see the commonalities shared with James Kirby's work as The Caretaker. Though not as affecting but certainly more varied and melodramatic, Moffat has made his best album as L. Pierre withThe Island Come True, a snapshot of his own little slice of Neverland.

Moffat is clearly still interested in telling stories, but it's not always so easy to follow his train of thought. Whereas something like An Empty Bliss Beyond This World is distinct and singular in its narrative, The Island Come True works like a collection of shorts, many of which manage to strike rich emotional chords. At one moment, you're floating a gondola down the Styx as a hair-raising concertina plays on in the background ("Harmonic Avenger"), and the very next you're being treated to a minute and a half of rusty, tumbling drums ("Drums"). Children mutter phonetic nonsense in lullaby ("Dumbum"), old recordings of relaxation techniques are layered hypnotically ("Tulpa"), seagulls shriek in the distance ("Kab 1340"). What's left is more of a jigsaw puzzle that is occasionally stunted due to a lack of fluidity, but the pervading mood is unmistakable: Like a forlorn soundtrack to a Quay Brothers film, the music paints strange, tiny pictures where you can see the vintage machinations at work.

Moffat is most consistent in his creations when the focus is centered around string and piano driven pieces. While something like "Sad Laugh" might be the best representation of his intent here (it's difficult to discern whether the sounds you're hearing are children laughing or crying), the most unhurried pieces are the ones that truly stick. With the piercing crescendos of "The Grief That Does Not Speak" or the lonely slow waltz of the album's finest piece "Exits", Moffat is able to excavate more sorrow and loveliness than his technique would suggest. Coupled with the creaking, popping physicality of the music-- a sensory experience akin to cracking a leathery old book-- The Island Come True reacts like a lost shadow being reunited with his owner. - Zach Kelly

Aidan Moffat is possibly the most consistently rewarding musician on Twitter. His late night, alcohol-fuelled rants in which he extols the virtues of everything from Stooshe’s Black Heart through to The Jesus Lizard is what Twitter was invented for. He’s passionate, sharp and, crucially, doesn’t take himself too seriously.

Moffat’s social media presence stands in stark contrast to the music he makes under the moniker L Pierre (formerly Lucky Pierre). It’s studiously arranged and, stripped of the darkly funny lyrics of Moffat’s former band Arab Strap, often quite bleak.

The Island Come True (the first L Pierre release since 2007’s Dip) is – discounting the occasional fragments of speech – an entirely instrumental work, pieced together from classical strings, sampled drums and field recordings. Nearly everything one hears on the record comes encased in a thick layer of click tracks and surface noise, occasionally added by Moffat himself: “There’s something beautiful in hearing the grit and hiss of old recordings,” he says.

If one were insane enough to play The Island Come True as mood music in a public place, it would sound like little more than repetitive instrumental music: a series of backgrounds without foregrounds. However, a careful listen reveals the album to be brimming with detail.

There’s nothing complex about the loops that carry The Island Come True’s melodies, yet the intricate details that surround these loops ensure that any repetition is illusory. On opener Kab 1340, a string loop that sounds like it’s been carried on the wind from a distant concert hall is embellished with the sounds of seagulls and the clanking of a shipyard. Harmonic Avenger, meanwhile, is carried along by a six note piano melody, around which circulate ghostly vocals, harmonica and smudges of guitar.

Elsewhere, Moffat takes ordinarily innocuous sounds and lends them a sinister edge through recontextualisation. On Dumbum, the sound of a woman singing absentmindedly to herself is repeated over and over again and – as is Moffat’s wont – cloaked in surface noise. It ends up sounding like a field recording from a mental institution. On Now Listen!, the noise of what appears to be an American TV presenter from the 1950s addressing an adolescent audience is, again, repeated to disquieting effect.

On moments like these, The Island Come True recalls the work of Boards Of Canada, specifically their knack of appropriating the sounds of public information films to produce sinister, otherworldly music. Unlike the music of Boards Of Canada, though, there aren’t enough drugs in the world to make people dance to The Island Come True.

The album’s 11 tracks are undoubtedly atmospheric, but they’re not atmospheric in any singular sense. Depending on the listener’s mood, they can sound pretty, wistful, menacing, or a strange combination of all three. This curious dissonance is a mark of this highly accomplished album’s quality. - Christopher Monk 

8.0 |   Drowned In Sound

1. Emotionally, it’s as striking as Moffat’s ever been. And given his lack of lyrical input here, that’s an impressive feat
   Read Review

2. 8.0 |   The Skinny

   The samples – including classical melodies, drum loops, and mournful vocal cries – are here allowed to speak for themselves
   Read Review

3. 8.0 |   The Fly

   Moffat’s just as capable of capturing a feeling or a moment with fragmented classical samples and field recordings as he is with words
   Read Review

4. 8.0 |   Mojo

   In instrumental guise he's a mystery wrapped in an enigma surrounded by a riddle. Print edition only 

5. 8.0 |   This Is Fake DIY

   Has a real innate beauty that makes it an utterly bewitching listen
   Read Review

6. 
   7.0 |   music OMH7.0 |   Sputnik Music (staff)

   Dominated by the gentle hiss and crackle of used vinyl, barely a sound in its 36-minute runtime arrives unobstructed, a trait which can affect overall tone as well as atmospheric resonance
   Read Review
7. The album’s 11 tracks are undoubtedly atmospheric, but they’re not atmospheric in any singular sense
   Read Review

8. 7.0 |   Uncut

   Eerier than previous L. Pierre efforts. Print edition only 

9. 6.0 |   The Scotsman

   Consists entirely of found sounds, mainly instrumental and spoken word samples, scuffed up with extra hiss and crackle for that vintage field-recording atmosphere
   Read Review

10. 6.0 |   Q

    At times melancholic, at other mischievous. Print edition only 

Touchpool (2005)

On hearing that Arab Strap's Tenants soaked front-man Aidan Moffat was intending to release a solo album a couple of years back, most people presumed it would be a dialect-drenched diatribe set to self-consciously lo-fi production. Most people were wrong. What he in fact released, under the name Lucky Pierre, was a gloriously downbeat collection of electronica that only hinted at his former incarnation on the corsucating 'Cunted Circus'. New album 'Touchpool' furthers itself even more from the Strap, consisting of 7 purely instrumental, sublime imaginary soundtrack pieces which positviely wallow in their brooding, late-night take on image-provoking soundscaping. Moffat seeks to dimsiss the claustrophobic, curtains drawn on a sunny day feel of his debut, instead bringing in live musicians to create a warmth that radiates simplicity and flawed beauty. "Touchpool" is a real revelation - one of the most enjoyable, moving releases of the year so far. Huge recommendation. - boomkat

For a guy whose career has seemed to be an extended chronicle of overcast ennui and sordid, wryly-observed time wastage, Arab Strap's Aidan Moffat has managed to be a rather productive chap. In addition to the Strap's umpteen releases, in 2002 Moffat also introduced his solo project Lucky Pierre, debuting with the entrancing Hypnogogia album. In this alter ego (whose name has since been shortened to the more polite L Pierre) Moffat creates deeply chilled, evocative instrumentals utilizing little more than manipulated loops of scratchy orchestral samples and languid programmed beats. But despite the humbleness of these tools, Hypnogogia managed to wordlessly plumb the same murky depths of emotion that Moffat explores behind the mic at his regular gig, which isn't bad considering that he reportedly first created the album to help put himself to sleep.
Touchpool picks up where Hypnogogia nodded off, with the vibrant strings of opener "Crush" inviting listeners back under the blankets. While its predecessor was recorded in dribs and drabs over a period of years, all of the tracks here were conceived and recorded as one unified piece, giving Touchpool a more dynamic, thoughtful structure.
Also helping to stir these waters is the strategic addition of live instrumentation to several tracks. Moffat's Arab Strap partner Malcolm Middleton provides guitar and bass, giving the lazy shimmer of "Baby Breeze" a hypnotic shoegaze swirl. And Dave McGowan's lilting pedal steel lends "Jim Dodge Dines at the Penguin Café" an exotic, Morricone-gone-tropical flavor as his playing glides effortlessly from wide-open prairie C&W; to Hawaiian-inflected palm tree sway.
Other highlights include "Velbon", which gently stretches a sample of Beethoven's "Pathetique" Piano Sonata to its ambient limits (its title is a mash-up of Ludwig Van's initials and Brian Eno's last name) and the epic closer "Total Horizontal", the serenity of which is enhanced by Allan Wylie's melodious trumpet contributions.
In fact if there's a major complaint to be leveled against Touchpool it's that it perhaps contains an overabundance of such serenity. Moffat's lo-tech, limpid beats can occasionally seem like something of an afterthought, and there's certainly little here more uptempo than the BPM at which you might sip a glass of top-shelf whiskey. However, if you've been searching for companionship during those sleepless, after-hour vigils for the approaching dawn, L Pierre has here kindly supplied a handsome flock of sheep for you to count. - Matthew Murphy

The first Lucky Pierre album, Hypnogogia, was released in 2002 to some fairly widespread critical acclaim. You may, however, know Lucky Pierre – or L Pierre – better as Aidan Moffat, one half of Arab Strap. Hypnogogia’s instrumental, sample-rich, orchestral-looping sounds came from five years of spare time work by Moffat, and quickly became Melodic’s best selling record. Can its successor match such an achievement?

The first thing you’ll notice about Touchpool is that it harnesses together the two faculties of beauty and melancholia – too often kept apart in modern music – and simply flows out the speakers. Album-opener Crush’s minimalist beats and weeping strings could easily soundtrack the most heartbreaking of scenes and leave you feeling all the more human for it.

Rotspots From The Crap Map (title taken from a Scottish tabloid paper, apparently) cooks up the same ingredients with a slightly more sinister edge, feeling altogether more ambient and brooding. Jim Dodge’s seabreeze tropicalia picks up the pulse thereafter and boasts some remarkably grin-inducing tones, thanks largely to the presence of the wonderful pedal steel (woefully underused these days, don’t you think?).

While Baby Breeze never quite emerges from its sting-based roots, it is followed by Fan-Dance – a provocative lounge track that grows from drum machine and piano to a subtle, cinematic climax. There may be no foot-to-the-floor or grit-your-teeth moments, and the whole affair ambles where others run, but that’s the whole point.

It’s evident from Touchpool’s coherence that Moffat formed and recorded it in one go, working diligently to smooth the seams between sample and live instruments. In terms of reference points, there is certainly some Cocteau Twins in the mix, though its ambient moments are not ambient enough to warrant a Sigur Ros or M�m comparison. Indeed, it is quite overwhelmingly orchestral at times, rendering it a mouth-wateringly rich prospect when you first hit that ‘play’ button.

Okay, so the song titles are occassionally ridiculous, and the sleeve’s cupped-breast artwork seems to be strangeness for strangeness’ sake, but Moffat’s tour de force quietly exhibits qualities that are absent from most other walks of music, being cinematic, subtle, dusty, sad and, more than anything else, beautiful. Moffat lets the music do the talking, and says far more than we ever expected. Vintage stuff. - David Welsh 

Dip (2007)

Lucky Pierre is the solo identity of Aidan Moffat, who until last year was the vocal half of Arab Strap. Malcolm Middleton handled most of the music in that outfit, but Moffat had plenty of the stuff in his own head, and since 2002 has kept a release schedule on the side even more prolific than his primary band's. This is his third Pierre record, though it's the first since he shortened the "Lucky" bit to just plain "L."

The name originally comes from the title of an early 1960s sexploitation flick called the Adventures of Lucky Pierre, which is something you might expect if you've listened to much Arab Strap. But while Moffat spent his time in that band deadpanning his way through the pain of romantic loss until the beer ran out, there's none of that here. Moffat's instrumental side is sounding pretty darn grand these days, even angelic in places. Whether it's a good look for him is debatable, though you have to admire his willingness to step out right after his very well-liked band just broke up and throw a curveball like this-- let's just say it's unlikely Pierre could get lucky with this as a soundtrack. He might get murdered though.
The album's biggest problem is that it's terribly unbalanced, opening with three droning, very similar tracks, one of which lasts 12 minutes with only the introduction of a plinky drum machine halfway through for variation. Human voice sounds, seemingly sampled into a synthesizer, lie very, very still while trumpets meander on top of them, creating the sort of sound that might play when the pearly gates appear in a movie, except that it lasts a really long time and never goes anywhere. It's a long way from the thump and dread of the first Lucky Pierre album.
It's the second half of the record where things get more interesting. "Ache" and "Hike" are both composed mostly for strings, but they're wildly different from each other and everything that surrounds them. You could guess what "Ache" sounds like from the title. It's a mournful two-chord piano skeleton wrapped in self-doubting string section flesh, very much like a lost Dakota Suite track. For the first two minutes the rhythm of the piano chords keeps slowing down, and as the piece loses forward energy, the strings come apart, regrouping as the rhythm stabilizes in the middle. "Hike", on the other hand feeds off of forward momentum the whole way, with a string section that builds off a quick baroque cello figure and gallops along with a drum machine that sounds like bacon sizzling and banjo that should sound out of place but doesn't. If you've ever wanted to hear a banjo play something that sounds like Bach (and I mean that as an unqualified compliment to the music), here's your chance.
And then it's back to the drones, which are all very pretty but ultimately not too exciting. They frequently sound like backgrounds begging for a foreground. I love the way the piano part rolls in and out like a wave on the shore on "Drift", but I'd like the tide to grow more or less turbulent along the way-- to vary in some respect. The synths that waft on top don't lead anywhere. There are building blocks for something fantastic in most of these pieces, but only in two of them have they been used to make more than the sum of their parts. -  Joe Tangari

As the vocal half of Scots miserablistsArab Strap Aidan Moffat’s tales of wry drunken fumblings and regret, soaked in booze, were couched in sympathetic musical backgrounds provided byMalcolm Middleton that encompassed post-rock, acoustic and elements of dance music. It’s a surprise then to hear the musical works of the voice step out from behind the microphone to provide a sensitive organic instrumental album of such beauty and pastoral textures. It’s a far cry from the self-loathing that characterised his contributions to Arab Strap.

Recorded before that duo split up this is in itself a departure from Moffat’s previous outings as L. Pierre with the ‘critically acclaimed’ (trans: sold bobbins, loved by critics) (Hypnogogia (2002) and Touchpool (2004) which leant heavily on drum loops and effects.

Opening and closing to the sound of waves crashing against the shore, there is a sense of an organic cycle completing and repeating or, god forbid, a concept album about the sea, nature and the great outdoors sprang from the use of Minidisc field recordings. Mercifully Moffat is not one to linger on the ‘hello birds, hello trees’ path of nature witlessness. Instead Dip takes a deeper breath and soaks up the ambience of the sea through these field recordings and teases tunes from them gently that enhance the experience and sense of universal rhythms and cyclical patterns carrying on regardless of any onlookers. It’s also helpful that there aren’t any messy vocals/lyrics to muddy the whole thing up.

Gullsong teeters on free-jazz rising up in swells of harmonium what sounds like the sea tuning up, a whale choir and random trumpets, double bass and violins rolling out amid the surge and splash. Anyone looking for a discernible ‘hook’ would be directed elsewhere, for like enjoyment of nature ‘these things (as a certain drinks manufacturer once said)’cannot be rushed’, and the rewards are much greater for it.

Bleeding into its tail is Weir’s Way; all 11 and a half minutes of it! A drawn-out acoustic sigh of banjo, trumpet and cello tinkling away like pebbles on the shore that sounds in places like a wholemeal version of Spiritualised without the drugs but more of the spaced-out grooves unfolding like a cosmic yawn. Gust builds a choral loop that shimmers in its own haze without touching ground at any point. Anywhere else it would be dismissed as trite filler but here it makes absolute sense.

Ache is full of crackling, morose, mournful strings and piano slide over a double bass pulse that aches and tugs at the heartstrings like the soundtrack to the saddest film ever imagined…but in a good way! Contrasting this is Hike, positively bouncy and upbeat in mood, conjuring with the term ‘baroque-tronica’ as neo-classical strings counterpoint hissing drum machines, crunching boots (hiking) and a sense of fun that sums up the organic feel to the album before the reflective Drift rounds things off with ambient washes of strings and piano and finally the ever-present sea.

So, an unexpected turn from our commentator on urban squalor with this dreamlike, abstract paean to Mother Nature and the great outdoors. It’s a deviation from the normal path expected, but aren’t those enticing journeys worth taking once in a while? - Andy Jex

Hypnogogia (2002)

Lucky Pierre is the work of Aiden Moffat whose principle work began in Arab Strap five years ago with chum Malcolm Middleton. Moffat's principal mission was to make 'music to fall asleep to' Indeed, the inspiration to create a relaxing wind-down record of his own came from the incessant spawn of contrived chill out records which currently invade record stores everywhere. 'I can't stand those chill-out things and I was having real bad sleeping problems; I just couldn't relax, so I decided to find some sounds which I liked and put them together, it's as simple as that'. - boomkat

Interview – L Pierre

by Steve Hands | 3 August 2005

The dreaded side project. Many natural resources have been squandered servicing the moments when the spiritually unfulfilled members of the rhythm section decide it’s their moment to pull in a few favours from the record company. And so begins the downfall of western civilisation.
But enough about Genesis. When Aidan Moffatt was challenged to make a solo record by Arab Strap partner Malcolm Middleton, for once the results were worth the conceit.
And thus was born Lucky Pierre, now truncated to L Pierre for the sophomore solo record, 2005′s Touchpool.

A burly figure replete with Captain Nemo-style beard, Aidan resembles a kindly version of Popeye’s arch nemesis Bluto. Though unfortified with spinach, I cornered Aidan in a cocktail-dizzy Islington bar before the second night of an Arab Strap performance. The Falkirk-burr remains untainted by repeated international travel, at least to these sassenach ears:

“I just wanted to be taken a bit more seriously… Lucky Pierre seemed like a funny idea at the time. In retrospect it sounded like I was sex obsessed, you know… Lucky Pierre, Arab Strap, blah, blah, blah… so it was purely for that purpose. (Also) when I was in America I saw flyers for at least three other bands called Lucky Pierre.”

Despite what you may have read, Aidan Moffatt is the soul of conviviality and the diametric opposite of the man one writer referred to as being ‘always ready for an argument’. Though by no means a Methuselah, Aidan’s rawer edges may have been toned down by the steady approach of his thirtieth birthday. In the same piece, Aidan had stated a desire to ‘make the most depressing album ever’, something he’s now quick to disclaim: “That’s just me talking shit. I don’t want to make records to upset people”.

Like many Brits born in the early-to-mid ’70s, Aidan’s reference points reflect the collective experiences of the ‘E’ generation, the afterglow of which informs the sound of L Pierre. “It definitely changed people’s tastes” Aidan confirms in reference to that era’s titular drug of choice.

“Somebody printed a list of the worst places to go in the UK… most of them were in Scotland… it might have been Stenousemuir…”
- L Pierre on sources of inspiration.

“I mean I had a fucking good time. But it gets to the point where you ask yourself ‘I could just carry on doing this or I could do something else…’ I don’t believe things like ecstasy are that addictive in themselves, I think you get addicted to the lifestyle”.

Rather than the bits ‘n’ pieces approach that characterised the formation of the first Lucky Pierre album Hypnogagia, Touchpool was intended as a cohesive work. In many ways, it’s an unusual record. For the expediency of easy categorisation, the record hovers on some middle-brow level between ambient and chill-out, but with a buoyant charm that avoids either potential millstone.

Aidan takes up the subject. “It’s not that I think there’s anything bad about chill-out music. I think it’s that people are trying too hard – I guess it’s trying to appeal to people who are flat out fucked from working. I think there’s a certain element of lounge music (to L Pierre) as well. I like the idea of that sort of stuff. The idea is to try and take out the goofy parts and try and make it into something you can listen to without pissing yourself laughing!

“I suppose it’s (hankering) after a bygone era. The same concept of chill-out music. It’s just the different drugs that people have been taking.”

Though essentially the product of loops pilfered from charity shop records, with a small number of ‘live’ contributions (Aidan – “I’m not musically gifted in that way, it seemed like the most obvious thing to do, to use samples”)the music flows organically. Rather thanReich-ish repetitions of slowly unwinding harmonics, or Eno-esque excursions into the the ether of yore, much of Touchpool’s seven pieces make a sensory impact that is virtuallyfloral.

Yet, this scents sensibility is a far cry from Touchpool’s actual inspiration. Like Rotspots From The Crap Map for example: “That was a headline in a Scottish newspaper” Aidan continues, “Somebody printed a list of the worst places to go in the UK and most of them were in Scotland… it might have been Stenousemuir (they were referring to)…”

“I think porn has its place… everything has its place!”
- L Pierre on a subject alien to most web users.

Other tracks have an origin more familiar for followers of a band named after a gentleman’s sex aid, and for a side-project named after… well, maybe some things are best left unexplained. Baby Breeze for example, is said to be inspired by a figure from Aidan’s not insignificant collection of ’70s porn. In a post-Loaded 21st century world, I thought it worth asking Aidan if porn was still a vital source for inspiration.

“Porn? Well (now I’m older) I’m into more sophisticated stuff, nice stuff…” Purely for the readership of musicOMH, I urge Aidan to tell more.

“Andrew Blake stuff… well shot, he only shoots on film… very graceful. I don’t watch it when I’m at home, I’ve no desire for it… its one of the few things you can watch that’s genuinely exciting… you know its just not filth! I think porn has its place… everything has its place!” Even filth, one would conclude.

Before this interview begins to sound like two pervy old men in a pub (well, more than sounds like) we turn the conversation around to the new L Pierre single that’s currently enlivening MTV2, the disco-fabulous I Hate T-Shirts That Say 1977.

Pitched somewhere between Graham Massey and Giorgio Moroder, this unabashed fling at the dance floor was cut from the same sessions that bore Touchpool. Featuring rapper Notes (Aidan: “He’s done some things with Melodic (L Pierre’s record label). He’s based out in Texas. Some people think its me trying to rap”), it’s not too much of a flight of fancy to imagine its ballroom strings sidling up to a Radio 1 playlist.

“I like a bit of disco, aye, I think it’s a nostalgic thing. I was only about five, but its something that I really remember”. Though no studio boffin, Aidan has a magpie eye for vintage synths, even if his girlfriend won’t let him buy anymore: “I’ve recently got (the same kind of synth that) Blondie used on Heart Of Glass” (actually a Roland JP 8000). “I’ve got so many…”

A drift towards the ultilisation of analogue sounds in recording (as much modern digital software will mimic the ‘fatter’ ‘warmer’ sound of pre-digital electronic instrumentation) is something Aidan has in common with a clutch of other practitioners of programmed mood music from Boom Bip, Four Tet to Brazilian svengali Apollo Nove.

“Anybody can buy a program for their computer. I suppose there’s a retro-quaint element to it, but I’m always amazed by the machinery. I love the pre-sets you get – (it’s) just sexier than sticking a disc into your computer. I think it’s kinda erotic, actually.”

It was inevitable that the subject would return to seedier subjects. Surrendering to the inevitable, I ask Aidan if, given his time again, he might have called himself something else from the euphemistic pages of Roger’s Profanisaurus, the glossary of smut compiled in homage to Viz Comic’s Roger Mellie “The Man On The Telly.”

Luckily, I’d come prepared. Though my suggestions of Sour Apple Quickstep, Moss Cottage and Salmon Canyon raise a titter (fnnaar!) or three, it’s Spam Castanets that really nets a full-on chortle.

Predictably though, Lucky Pierre trumps me.

“When I was in school, I was once given a birthday cake, and my friends wrote on it every word they could think of for ‘fanny’. One of my friends wrote Pleasure Enquiry Cavern. I think that was the best one. I think I would choose that.”