The test! I ripped across the top of the plastic, took all the parts out of the bag and lay them on the desk in front of me. Plastic test tube, cotton bud, and drop tester. A little flattened box you make to hold the test tube and a small little sealable plazzie bag, I presume to put your cotton bud in. It’s quite an affair, and the result, NEGATIVE. It’s not that I felt ill, it’s just that I had a cough and it seems that if you get anything like a cough or cold it’s prudent to check, because ultimately, it’s not about me, it’s about spreading something to somebody else who might not be able to brush it off. COVID was never about you Superman/Superwoman, it was always about who you might harm.

I woke up to a day of intense listening, the mixes are arriving from Andreas and I put on my headphones, the same ones he uses, which helps get perspective because listening on different equipment changes everything. It’s good to do that, but also good to know where the mix balances are coming from sonically. I listened intensely, getting close to being done but not quite yet, Brian’s Valley of Salt project needs a lot of attention to detail, the nature of the music demands that. There are also mystery project mixes, the imminent Blueburst, and with the first Arktik Lake single out, an album to sign off on.

I had a sesh with Fred in Minneapolis. Nicklas from Anekdoten has played ‘real’ Mellotron on one of the tracks on his record and we were discussing what a huge difference it made to the track in comparison with the electronic version that we had on there as a vague guide. Digital works for some things but at other times analogue is king, perhaps the most timeless electronic music is the German music from the seventies – analogue. Digital is often shortcuts that take longer.

Fred went on to help me sort this iCloud business out, it’s full, how do I move stuff out of iCloud, it’s a mystery. I figured out how to move photos, so I could free up space and put them on my hard drive, but of course, every photo has a long number and I have to name them all, who has time for that? I thought I’d buy more storage for 99 cents a month, I bought it, yesterday, today it hasn’t changed. Why is it so hard? Why did they close down my Instagram accounts with no one to help? Progress has never been so hopeless.

The rest of the evening was spent half with Blueburst Craig in South Carolina making sure all the artwork for the Blueburst album is correct and the other half with Noel in England discussing the benefits and shortcomings of the treble booster. The idea of having a pedal board is a relatively new concept – Hendrix didn’t have a pedal board, neither did Jimmy Page, maybe a treble booster, a fuzz, a wah-wah but a pedal board, no. These days, pedal boards can make you sound like an orchestra and have a nice piece of buttered toast ready for you to eat between songs.

Music today has been the single I Am The Seed from the forthcoming album Albion by Harp. Harp is the project of former Midlake singer Tim Smith. As it happened, today there was an article in The Guardian about him and it name-checked The Blurred Crusade.

Music Of The Daze