Sarah Gill’s cello piece for December’s Burning completely blew me away. It’s both sympathetic to the fragility of the song, but at the same time accentuates the melody with real finesse. I sound like a Pseuds Corner applicant, but it’s true. She also did some work on My Attorney’s Tetris, a Danny Elfman piano lick that doesn’t sound a million miles away from Batman or Nightmare at Christmas. At first she just layered different scales over the top, but then as my mind got into gear and I became acutely aware that it’s not every day you have an extremely talented cellist in front of your microphone, I suggested more she try making more radical sounds. Sarah seemed to turn the whole instrument into a giant wooden effects pedal. My favourite was a harmonic slide that I’ll definitely use in something. I thought: if I could sample every player in an orchestra experimenting with their instrument in the same way, I would never need the use of a digital effects unit again.