Sean Kitching dipinge per The Quietus lo strano strano mondo di Charles Hayward, e ne parla nel contempo col diretto interessato. Da lui si fa dire tra l'altro dello strepitoso set solitario proposto dal vivo per anni tra la gioia e la meraviglia del pubblico di mezzo mondo - tra Abracadabra Information e One Big Atom più o meno, ma in epoche anche precedenti - prima di suscitare analoghe reazioni con il più recente, affatto diverso, 30 Minute Drum Roll: "I started to wonder how I could play drums and sing, and not do it with other musicians. So, I devised this system, where there are no click-tracks and in fact nothing is in time with anything else. I came up with a system where I had a collection of foot pedals, which controlled volume and then I had these taped signals which could be up to nine minutes long, which were built and tailored specifically to the song I was making, and as the song changed I’d take some sounds out and bring other sounds in, related to the harmonic shifts and I would bring them in and out in relation to the drum beat and the vocal line and people would think that everything was to a click-track. If I was playing a bass part, when I recorded the bass part, I would be thinking along the lines of a constantly shifting pulse, so there is no pulse. It becomes almost like an extreme funk, the bass doing these amazing syncopations against the drums, but it’s completely random. I think some people think I’m playing to a backing track, and I’m not. I’m playing to some sounds that I have made, that are assembled in front of your ears, differently each time I play. The audience makes sense of it and 90% of the work is going on in their heads. It means I can be wild. If I’m playing to a click-track, I’m being a good boy and the last thing I want to be when I’m making music is a good boy. Having to justify your time keeping against some bit of machinery is dehumanising. The heartbeat is at the centre, not the clock."