Monday 16 February 2004

An active week has passed. Much editing of arrangements, editing of audio, editing of schedules, editing of publicity material, chasing of money (interminably), hiring of vehicles: very occasionally some music breaks into the picture and is herded out again by marauding 'stuff'. The box office details for our March tour are now on our events page.

I'm listening to a borrowed CD of Ryuichi Sakamoto at the moment: it's all beautifully recorded, but there's an amazing Alva Noto remix of 'Insensatez' at the end, that bristles with digital glitches: all those irritating noises that mastering engineers spend hours and hours removing, or that tell you that your CD player's about to pack up. In the context of such a calm piece of music, it's great (once you've realised that your CD player's not about to pack up). Last night I was introducing a different kind of digital snash into the edit of our Dowland remix piece, by slowing down the track at the end, so that it succumbs to lots of time-modding distortion: intriguingly ugly when it happens to a beautiful tune.

Meanwhile I've been asked by Mychael Danna to play some more fortepiano and some BBP (big black piano) on the soundtrack for Mira Nair's movie of Vanity Fair, and have hatched a plan to finally complete the editing of our CD The Red Red Rose for Delphian Records. Whoopee.

I would have written more diary entries about all this activity, but my Psion is only now en route home from its repair shop. The last time its screen packed up, the repair centre turned it round in a couple of days, and I was hoping for the same service this time. But I checked the UPS waybill this morning, and found that it's in Marseille. Oh well. I bought a PDA magazine and spent the idle time in Court No. 6 this afternoon (I'm doing jury service in amongst everything else) choosing a new gadget to buy with money I haven't been paid yet. The prospect of wi-fi web and email while lying in the bath beckons, I think.

But right now I'm going to turn off my phone and go out with my wife for a meal: it's my birthday and everyone and everything else can just sod off for a while. It's nothing personal ...