Cultural Life: La Roux, musician


Music: I saw Fever Ray at the Forum recently. She's Swedish and is from one of my favourite bands, The Knife. She's cripplingly shy and very rarely performs live. In order to overcome her shyness she performs in the dark using nothing but lasers and low-level lampshades on stage. I absolutely love her music. Other than that, I'm listening to a lot of old disco records, tracks like Punkin' Machine's "I Need You Tonight" and "Harmony" by Suzy Q. 'Sly & Robbie and the Taxi Gang Anniversary' is also a current favourite.

Books: 'The Member of the Wedding' by Carson McCullers. My mum gave it to me to read because we'd just done a tour of the American South. It's a beautifully written book and very evocative. I'm also dipping into 'Station to Station', a book covering three years of Bowie's tours completed by boat, train and bus. There are some great photographs. It's really insightful and full of fantastic stories from life on the road.

Films: 'Moonwalker'. Over the course of the last year, I have been given three different copies of it, by three different people, and lost all but one. I finally sat down to watch it the other night. It starts sort of as you'd expect, with a massive Michael Jackson montage and homage and descends into one of the weirdest things I've seen in a while. You'll just have to watch it.

Theatre: Punchdrunk's 'Faust' and 'Masque of the Red Death' totally blew me away. You're not seated like a normal audience, and the performances take place in creepy old buildings. You wear a mask and a cape, and lose your friends and walk through the most surreal-but-terrifyingly-real world. It's like a dream and a nightmare all at once.

La Roux's album 'Sidetracked' is out now on Renaissance (www.laroux.co.uk)

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