Pat away a few days, some mild debauchery lined up

 Yeah, pretty mild, I admit. OK there was the found baggy to get through and Thursday was pretty productive - three tracks, only one of which was shit. Friday we treated like a Saturday and remixed the last thing we recorded and did a new one, so a Headshock triumph all in all. 

Next, Saturday is here and I thought I might give my arse a rest - so bought an Aldi pizza. Three curries on the run might be a bit much, although last night's was delicious. Gonna tackle a bit of garden today and music again in the afternoon - Tony working on his van I think so I'll be without distraction. Still not really broken through with the difficult novel section, I keep chipping away until I have a clear sight of what I want, not there yet but the ideas are there waiting to be plucked.

Ultimately, Saturday was good. Three new tracks, pizza, some words inching towards where they're supposed to go, yeah man. Shrooms - 4 then 4 more capsules. Not extreme, just a mild buzz amongst the general buzz. 

Hmm, some royalties from the States. Also: funny how quitting the Eurorack habit caused cash to start accumulating. 

Tuesday and Tony has two long walks lind up to choose from, think he's trying to kill me off. This lumpy foot could be an issue as it's not exactly easy to walk on - so 9 miles through boggy terrain seems to be a daft proposition. Spent a few hours playing with the MS20 and associated modules and Toosh. It's a great thing in itself and, with the P3 on board and Reface used to add notes beyond the keyboard range, a lovely space to be in. I just realised I turned it off without capturing that fabulous sequence that I'd captured in the RC_505, idiot! Can recreate though as it's still in the P3. And I need a better melody than the Kraftwerky one I kept slipping into. Anyway, getting some novel in as I had some improved ideas while walking Broc this morning (Pat's back too sore to take him out). 

Will aim to make my Friday happen on Thursday this week due to wedding. 

Bow Fell (quite a big one), tiring but a good walk and lots of pix (these are my 'B' set). 

Osmose update - still nothing substantial announced, doubt I'll see mine this year (if at all).

September shuffles along, Night Sky arrives

 Been trying Udo again with my long-time moan about lack of fine tune between the oscillators. Really frustrating this issue has taken the shine of a lovely synth for so long. I mostly love the UI - but where they deviated from the JP-6 is where they went wrong. The keyboard ain't great, the left hand controls poor and the sequencer still annoys me - all could be forgiven if they'd just attend to this basic function. We'll see if this attempt makes any progress but it sure was disheartening to be at this stage and return to the original 'did you set the controls to high res?' question, which shows they haven't understood the issue at all. Calm breaths, Paul.

This morning I'm going to my mum's to fit the SIM in her new phone - the one Margaret had and we recommended in the past. She'd bought it before but disliked immediately and had sent back before I was able to get there and find what she disliked. Mothers eh? The NightSky is meant to arrive just after lunch so may get a quality play. Think I'll attach to the Super 6 as I'm playing that a lot at the moment, will retire Cosmos to its MS20 corner where it works well. Ignoring the MPC for a while. Good to have it there as a reminder I really don't need it - or anything else. Yesterday I went through all the BB songs in setup 4 and found their tempii and added to file names. I should do same for BBS1.

Faffed with phone but eventually sussed mum's numbers weren't on her SIM as she had believed. Victory that took a while. Got home to glorious sunshine and a NightSky. Spent just a while (too nice) and it has a nice and very tweakable character containing some elements of the Eventide Space as well as its own flavours. The sequencer was good (somehow I expected it to sequence any parameter not just pitch/size) and the morphig even better, will definitely use that. No way I'm not doing yet more ambient nonsense with this baby. Maybe makes less sense to have it in the same room as the BigSky as there is a Strymon character very evident. The Oto BAM still the nicest-sounding for the big warm ambience sound, the Space still the weirdest, the BigSky the widest-ranging and this one maybe wins for its performance control, we'll see when I learn it properly. 

When I was young I was all about delay. Now I'm old it's verbs. Definitely a sign of advancing age. 

Doc appointment got mysteriously cancelled - by the app they reckon. Anyway, spoke to receptionist and arranged a proper appointment. Sadly, it was first thing in the mornig and my vocab subroutines were still initialising. Could not think of the word 'prostate' so instead I asked to have my arse probed as a friend recently died of arse cancer. I suppose they hear all sorts of nonsense. 

Saturday was an excellent Headshock sesh its name on the tip of my tongue. Yessirreee.Knill. We were both convinced Tim's mix was perfect, fla,wless and so on - later realised he missed the throbbing sequence that held it together. I almost did too. Dopey idiots!

Looking for a copy of my old website (and failing to find a recent one), came across quite a few backups of early library tracks. Had forgotten just how diverse it all was. Quite a few I'd forgotten about - lots of wacky use of Apple Loops but in my own inimitable style. And this just scratching the surface.

Pat going away this week. Fun, smoke, wld noises and writing ahead!

Gardening leave

 I do tend to leave the gardening 'au naturel' but have done a bit lately in preparation for winter. Almost completed the front, then noticed loads of little caterpilars and spiders hanging out there so just cleared around the heather and left them to it. Good excuse really. 

Nice walk in the park at Leyland - didn't know they had a Giant Redwood, but they do. In the afternoon I made progress with the MPC in that I put it on its own switch with the mixer, speakers, keyboard and Octatrack. Means I can work entirely in it with no other distractions. Want to get into sampling next so the keyboard will be the little Reface CS for a while. First, must get back into basic stuff - can't edit notes on it but with the OT between keyboard and MPC it means I can record stuff into that then into Akai - much better/faster. Again it took yonks to find the arpeggiator - had to get manual out - but I will remember in future. Think there should be an Undo that only affects notes not just last action, which could be tweaking synth noise or selecting a new patch. Looked for clear all option for all data in a sequence as I'm sure that's possible. Did track by track in the end. Oh and it desperately needs a regular mixer with FX obvious per track, or to my thinking it does, but I'm getting there. Didn't record anything of value but the doing was worth it. Trick is to keep at it rather than leaving it a few more weeks ;)

Thursday we went to Malham. Excellent day. 

Friday was a bit different - Tim and I did the patio mat/soil matrix. Thought I was surely in the good books but made mistake of embracing the idea of a chaotic spread of plants, quickly rescinded but damage was done. I made a prawn curry later and almost redeemed myself. 

Saturday morning I ordered the Strymon NightSky I'd been pondering. I mean, you only live once, right? Maybe a Headshock session today, think we've earned it. 

Yesterday's HS track Clonkett is interesting. There was a point, quite early on, when Tim was doing this cool arpeggio and I was doing a very simple piano tune, that it could have been wonderful. Alas we didn't capture that and I've totally forgotten the melody now. It was so simple I remember at the time thinking 'this will be easy to remember'. Ho ho not so. 

Right now I'm torn - itching to get into the studio, itching to write that big scene at the end ot the novel, not itching quite so much to slog through the MPC again. 

Tomorrow Broc has his bollocks off. And with that...

Mark Shreeve RIP

 It's been a bad time lately for our scene, losing giants such as Klaus Schulze and Vangelis, but also very important but lesser-known figures such as Tony Sawford. Yesterday I got home from my walk to hear Mark Shreeve had died. So when the dog woke me up at 05:30, instead of going back to sleep I started thinking of Mark. I posted something on his facebook page but it still doesn't really do him justice. 

Ever since hearing the awful news, I've been trying to write something suitable - and failing. Mark was there from the very start of our little EM scene - and from the outset he was its brightest light. I remember being completely blown away by what he did at the first UK Electronica and, over the years, by the twists and turns of his career. I was certainly a bit of a fanboy - so much so that, when Mark attended one of my gigs, I was so nervous and shaky I accidentally hit the wrong button on my sequencer, stopping it in mid-flight. I only rarely suffered from stage-fright but the thought of playing sequences to the man behind Redshift was simply too much to handle. Anyway, if any P3 or Cirklon owners have ever wondered about its 'safe stop' function, wonder no longer. It's there because of Mark and the effect he had on me, which I'm sure would have amused him greatly.

Losing him is a real shock and the EM world is a duller, greyer place without him in it. I'm sure many of us will be playing his music today and in the days that follow. RIP.

I also remember the early days when Jive Electro were looking to take on a British EM artist. Ian, Mark and myself were in the running (perhaps more people too?) and I did chuckle much later at my own ineptness. Mark sent Assassin, not sure what Ian wernt with (the Climb?) but I sent them a 90 minute cassette of the Eternal Champion, clearly thinking quantity would triumph over quality. It's the one that starts with that really cheesy brassy tune thing - ouch! I remember them asking about how keen I was on going to London and being told 'not very' but I'm sure it was the music that sealed the deal. They definitely picked the right man! Mark was already more switched on than the rest of us and had demonstrated that at UKE '83. I wish I'd kept more in touch - our occasional emails got fewer over the years, as so often happens. 

Friday was good - filled the skip with rubble and cuttings so we can carry on with the next phase of the plan. I had a jolly afternoon writing and some night writing too after Pat went to bed. This is almost my favourite part of a novel, where I'm nearly at the end of the first draft and have ideas for all the little gaps that remain. It's just a matter of time, sitting and typing now. Once draft #1 is complete I'll maybe let it stew a few months before starting the comb-through to make draft #2, the one others can read. This time I'll try to get people involved before it goes any further, will give me time to think about cover. Hopefully I can get something from Tim and his Midjourney Masterpieces as that'll be a great look even if it doesn't match the first. 

Good day (Saturday) Zimpel was the track and I fucked my mix but fortunately I knew Tim's was the one from the start. 

My copy of VidepPad updated itself today and now claims to be a fucking demo version. Cuntage!!!! Rolled back to previous version. 

Oh look, Farage has his own gin. In JAA my lizards made Patrios gin but his is red, white and blue - close enough to call copycat?

I did a sorta jam on Cirklon based on Assassin/Assault on Prec13. I guess that was bound to happen. Very fond memories of that album and damned if I can find my copy. I know I flogged my vinyl of Thoughts of War years ago but sure I still had Assassin somewhere. Oh well. 

Now then, it's Tuesday and I updated the Cosmos and RC-505-II. The former appears to have lost the annoying noise when going into reverse and the latter now works properly when it comes to odd-length loops. Actually it was fixed at 1.2 but I never checked - so no more need to do the dummy bar thing, yay! Had a pleasant afternoon sending Jupiter through the Cosmos and grabbing random stuff from it and the Super 6 into the looper, including some quickly-improvised sequencing. Made me very happy. Didn't record it because, well, I'm not sure it's healthy to record everything. Sun seems to be coming out so maybe I'm done in the studio, might just potter a tiny bit more though ;)

Tales of Summers Past

 Good album that. Strikes me this Summer is going the way of the rest, was dark at half eight tonight. Progress on novel halted and creativity generally suffering due to stress of doing objections to this planning for our little field. I learned a few things about SuDS and have arranged to meet with planning officer from council on Friday. The committee seems to want me to speak up for us but we'll see. I read a pretty weaselly thing from LCC's flood officer basically withdrawing all their objections but injecting a bunch of conditions - you'd think they were working for the housing company sometimes. I looked up the guy on LinkedIn and he's been in post only a year, worked three more in another council post so perhaps that's why he's unaware of historical flooding in the area. Anyway, going to try and learn more about all the local drains tomorrow. Well, after taking my mum to have her eye drops. No walk this week and starting to feel lazy and in need of one. Got concrete and drain covers so can start some work when weather nice. Hey ho.

Today is the end of August, Colin informs me that Phil would've been 60. I never remember things and feel rather shit because of it. I'm listening to the remastered version of Excession and feeling all misty-eyed. 

The last few days have seen good progress on the novel, finally got a number of things down that have been whirring around my mind, including a rather silly metaphorical statement from our heroic samurai chick. Yeah, lizards, apocalypse, samurai chicks and (failed) zombies - every cliche you can think of is in there, well every one I could think of. 
This week we have to get skip sorted, remove all the hard core, have soil come and make a flat surface for all the surface grid things.

Thursday, a weird day. Our Clare's killer on front page of the Mail, then heard our letter to United Utils seems to have helped in that they have agreed to look further into the matter and delay the decision. It's something to know people will listen - going to try LCC's new flood guy next. Got back from a good walk up Ingleborough to learn Mark Shreeve has died. That's a real shocker - Mark was a great guy, surely the best out of the UK EM scene, talented and successful and one who was there at the start along with Ian, myself and a few others. I will be playing Redshift albums tomorrow, well, after filling the skip.