With music you can express any emotion, you can paint pictures (Brian Eno).

I’d been awake since 5.00 am – staring into the gathering light that seeped past the edges of the curtains and into the bedroom. My thoughts went in and out of focus, and moved – ponderously and haphazardly – from one dimension of my life to another. I resolved to return home for a few days in July, once university business is concluded. It seemed appropriate to consider what currently seems like a hazy future, with both feet upon the soil of my upbringing. 7.30 am: A communion. 8.00 am: Outstanding emails were put to rout, while I held two parallel conversations, by email and messenger, about equipment purchases and builds. My younger son has been commissioned to construct a powerful new computer for sound and image processing:

9.15 am: Studiology. I was presently on the fourth phase of mixing. During my early morning wakefulness, I pondered whether one of the deleted album tracks should be reinstated, albeit with significant changes its tonal dynamics and progression. One can only prove the merit of an idea by putting into practice. That became the task at hand. I deployed strategies of woven and contrasting equalisations that I’d first developed for The Remnant That Remaineth and Erased Messiah Recording compositions.

‘Do you create only when you’re inspired?’, I’ve been asked. ‘No. I create in order to be inspired’, is my response. Creative practice is part of my employment; I’m in the privileged position of being paid to be playful. So, I approach my practice as I would a job. I sit at my desk, and just do it … whether or not the mood takes me. And, as I work, something happens. Always. In that moment, I’m more myself, grounded, and focussed than at any other time. I was made to make.

12.00 pm: The new ‘clay’ had been prepared. Before integrating it with the existing composition, I listened to something else that I’d made in order to remind my ears of the sonorities that were characteristic of the other album tracks. The composition consists of harsh, over-driven, and troubling noise that rarely peaks below the red zone on the meters:

Having added a number of versions, with different equalisations, of the original to the original, I was able to gauge what change the original’s tonal frequencies needed to undergo. Thereafter, I was able to strip away the additional tracks. Less was more; but the more had actively improved the less on this occasion. That I’d tested an idea and improved the composition as a result, was one thing; whether it should be returned to the playlist, was quite another. As I’d taught my tutees yesterday (repeatedly): the totality of the exhibition is of greater importance than any one contributing work. Each must justify its inclusion by not only its intrinsic merit but also a capacity to enhance the integrity of the whole.

After lunch, I began the process of equalising the volume and loudness of the compositions in relation to one another. Once deposited into the session file, I left the tracks until tomorrow. The album notes and design would shortly require my attention. I’m hoping to release the CD by the end of Summer.

For the last hour of the afternoon session, I reconnected with analogue sound:

7.30 pm: Feedback write-ups beckoned. At this time of the year, my working pattern is in disarray. I respond to the necessary and urgent before all else. (David Bowie’s Blackstar played in the background.)