The threat of having a toilet and one working tap was hanging over us. In this ex-laboratory, there are six tapless sinks, three toilets, and one urinal (one of the most awful words in English). To have none of these water release and delivery systems working has been frustrating, but yesterday Pedro the plumber promised to come back today and have these porcelain prizes functioning by early evening. At 5.30 he arrived and by 6.30 he had kept his promise and we now have one toilet of three working, one sink of six now working and one ugly urinal working (a side effect of the fixing in what was the men’s public toilet). The women’s toilet is broken and the third toilet at the back has to be moved. We also have water, cold water, no hot water, that would be asking way too much.

I started the day by getting up later than I have been on previous days, I felt like I needed a lie-in, not that I knew much about it, I was asleep at the time. I was out of the room that shrinks as fast as possible, and sitting in the famous red chair in front of the stereo system listening intensely to an album from beginning to end. It seems a rare concept these days, who has 57 minutes (it was a CD) to do nothing but listen? That took me to the computer and the ‘catch up work in progress’ but I felt like I needed to just watch something, perhaps inspired by listening to something, no phone, no interruption, so I watched Episode 2 of Fauda, Season 3 on Netflix, this is something I never do in the daytime which seemed like the exact reason why I should do it.

Lunch at the café in the square is always a nice break from the studio, the emails, the Archive development issues, the renovations, although today I felt like I’d had a break from taking a break after listening and watching earlier. The lunch table was the one we usually sit at in the sun. For some reason, most people seemed to sit back from the sun in the second row close to the café windows. Perhaps it’s a case of “mad dogs and Englishmen” but with the clouds floating across the sky and a breeze you didn’t feel like you were being cooked.

I had a sesh at 6 PM with Jay in Yorkshire, a preliminary, where we get to know each other a little and investigate how I can help. He came to see us play when we were in Leeds and we had spoken so it wasn’t the first time we had had contact. After that, I listened to an Arktik Lake edit and watched Man U throw the game away to a draw with Sevilla (2-2). Now we have electricity, internet, and a loo and tomorrow I will get into concentrating on listening to all the tracks and projects that I need to consider. We have 24 new Jed and Space Summit demos, there’s a new mix from Craig and Blueburst, new songs from Brian and Valley of Salt, and then there’s Rajan’s demos as well as the next Arktik Lake edit to listen to. Somehow and sometime tomorrow, I also would like to get to the pool to work on stay, stay, stay, stay, staying alive and be alert enough to concentrate on a good full day’s work of listening to projects I will be working on in the coming months.

Music today, the CD I listened to from beginning to end, was the fifth Feist album, Pleasure (2017). A fascinating Canadian artist who throws away the rules of structure whilst making melodic music that has both beauty and edge.

Music Of The Daze