Thursday 29th

For once, I am actually writing a song in full before recording it. Generally, unless it's one I've prewritten, say, a year ago and am now taking on Producer duties for, I start with a noise I like, record it and go from there. Generally, I'm chasing a colour - all tracks I hear are colours, and if I can nail the right hue I know it'll sound right. That also makes each new track I write a kind of adventure-quest - I don't know where it's going, but it's going to be hard and fun.

In this case, I've started with a drum pattern on my faithful little Korg ER1 (which means making the drum sounds yourself, which I love, both in concept and practice. It's just so satisfying to sit back and go - yes, these waveforms only do that because I commanded them to), which I have named The Cast Of STOMP. That should give you an accurate idea of the sound. Basically, lots of blokes at the back of a hall banging stuff. Wicked. Add in some phased Rhodes riffage, and you're basically there. This track is currently dark purple and cerise. Not colours I'd have chosen, but they work in this case. It's called Living With Ghosts, and I've been working on it for 4 days straight without putting anything down to disk. Something about that is both disheartening and encouraging. Ignore the technology, Leni, well, obviously except that which fills the drum machine and is providing those Rhodes samples. But we'll ignore that, shall we?

Friday 24th

My piano is being tuned. She needed it. I really hate having it done to her though. It's like bringing someone in to intimately examine someone in your care. They're bound to be a bit standoffish afterwards. My piano tuner in Coventry was a fantastic long haired, sandal wearing, freestyle jazz piano man who just exuded this love of the instrument. He was very caring with her. This guy's more like an accountant who happens to have perfect pitch and thought he may as well use it. I can practically feel the stirrups, rubber gloves and cold steel instruments after he leaves her. It'll take us a while to get past it and back to ourselves again.

Friday 17th

Yes! Yes, yes yes! Mary is finally done and sounds AMAZING. Pretty much ALL my original ideas are gone - no choir, very little of the original drum or synth sounds, and I've added in a harp and put the vocals through various manglers. About two weeks ago I gave up on the damn thing after three months of wrestling with it - Sod it, I said, That'll do. File it away. On Monday I dug it back out again with a sigh and now it really is actually done. I know that's true, deep down. and I am joyous.

Just to give you a sense of the epic battle which this track has been - Blank Space, which pretty much wrote itself in a very short time, was just over 700mb when I came to back it up. That is basically everything I recorded for it, whether those audio clips ended up in the final piece or not. Mostly they did. With Mary, who is now finished on her 6th or so incarnation and uses very little of that found in her first version, was just over 4Gb. Yeah.

Saturday 11th

Back from Manchester. Spent all of Thursday wandering the various museums and art galleries, mostly spent in the big ol' gallery. Hugely disappointed to find it taken over by Kylie, but briefly interested by watching the crew on her tour assemble her arena setup. Shame they sped that part up in order to fit in more interview time with the diminutive one. Don't they understand what's REALLY interesting?

Found myself totally drawn in by Juan Munoz's Blotter Figure on display in one of the permanent galleries. I don't remember having seen it before. Man shaped, a little smaller than me, and totally swathed in ribbed concrete, I genuinely felt it was alive. Spent a long time in that room, just looking at him. Think the steward person got a bit concerned.

Good things always happen in Manchester, which is why I don't live there. I don't want somewhere I truly love being ruined by the dross of everyday life. I shall spend some time prospecting for the good given this time around, but I've a fairly strong inkling as to what it was. And I'm glad of it.

Wednesday 8th

The new track is called Blank Space, and I'm just about done with it, I think. I've been editing more than I have on any other track to get it all JUST SO. Damned fast synth parts I can't quite get right. Manchester tomorrow. Good things happen there, but I must be ready to go.

Monday 6th

I'm writing something new. And it's coming in fast. Let's hope I can get it down before I disappear to Manchester for a while.