Summa: diary (July 25-31, 2026)
July 25 (Saturday). 6.30 am: A communion. 7.30 am: An ambulation. ‘There’s a shadow running through my days’, sang Neil Young. But I continue to outrun it. I greet the sea as I would an old friend. She’s a patient listener.
The recent heatwave has revealed the footprints of buildings, landmarks, and their associated activities, going back 2,000 years in some instances. The scars of our own past may resurface under the fierce heat of trial. Trauma can be buried out of sight, but it cannot be wholly erased.
8.30 am: Shoppery. I couldn’t find a particular product, and so asked a silver-haired ‘shelf technician’ with a strong East End of London accent for advice. ‘Oh! You’ll need to go down here, turn left, go up aisle 8, turn right at the top and, then, left, down passed the talcum powder section to the middle of aisle 7’. ‘You have “the knowledge” of a London cabby’, I joked. ‘That’s what I used to be’, he replied.
6.30 am: I attended the Arts Centre cinema to see Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey (2026). It wasn’t an IMAX presentation. Nevertheless, the relatively small screen was sufficient to the task. It’s a remarkable film on many levels. The story is about a journey home. Nolan’s earlier films, such as Inception (2010) and Interstellar (2014), are articulations of the same theme.
July 27 (Monday). 6.30 am: A review of the week ahead, followed by a communion and breakfast. 8.00 am: Writing. 8.30 am: Studiology. On Friday it struck me forcibly that the last note on the last track of the Darkness album required a G# played on a piano. This would accompany the same note sampled from a 78-rpm recording of a brass band, played at quarter speed and backwards. A piano had contributed to several earlier tracks, and was seeking its own finale.
9.15 am: I began the process of making a final mixdown of all the album tracks.
Over the day’s tea and lunch breaks, I caught up with social media posts (of weight and significance) by my friends — including a recent profile of Julie Brominicks, in Nation/Cymru. (Her new book, Cader Idris: Let the Mountain Speak, will be released on September 1.) What’s an author worth? Making art, in any medium, may be its own reward. Nevertheless, even a little remuneration for one’s efforts can prove to be an enormous encouragement, and contribute to maintaining a way of life that makes creative endeavour practicable. I’ve been fortunate in having had a full-time academic career and salary to support my publications, exhibitions, and releases. Consequently, I’ve not had to be over-concerned about popularity and sales. Although I still reap a small harvest from the royalties of some of my earliest books.
The final mix is when I first begin to fall out-of-love with an album. I’ve listened to the tracks one too many times already. They are now at their most vulnerable. For there’s nothing more I can do to better them, compositionally. Nevertheless, there are things that can still be achieved in terms improving presence, loudness, and equalisation. This will be the task for the next few days.
July 28 (Tuesday). 7.15 am: An ambulation and communion.
A grey day, like those days in late-September 1982 when I arrived in Aberystwyth to begin MA studies in ‘Visual Art’. This morning, I saw lights on in bedroom and office windows, and inside the Old College, where workers in iridescent-yellow waistcoats and hard hats were already gathering to continue their renovation of the building. The smell of cooked breakfast seeped out of the B&Bs on South Road. Plastic bags of recycling, which haven’t been collected in over a week, had been pecked open by seagulls and spilt across the pavements. This is not a good image of the town, especially at the height of the holiday season.
8.30 am: Studyology. Writing. 9.15 am: Studiology. I continued making small adjustments to the loudness and clarity of the remix tracks. 9.30 am: The landscape artist and educator Karen Pearce dropped by for coffee and toast, and regaled me with stories about her recent successful painting workshop in Tuscany.
12.30 pm: I’d generated two sets of masters. The second differs from the first only insomuch as ‘subtle clarity’ and +10 dB have been added. 1.30 pm: An ambulation to town to post a congratulations card. En route, I determined that the 144 Variations album would be the 9th release in The Aural Bible series and Darkness, the 10th. While they are two parallel expressions of the same subject, they do not constitute a double album. Each has a distinct and complementary approach to the disaster. (Walking clears the mind.)
I uploaded the 16-track set of the Darkness album to the holding folder on my Sound website. Tomorrow, I’ll listen to them comparatively and make adjustments.
July 29 (Wednesday). 6.30 am: Writing. 7.30 am: From the Promenade, I saw a seal swimming southwards; and, afterwards on South Beach, what appeared (from a distance) to be a fragment of sandstone moulding. All the while my inner-tutor objected: ‘Heavy chunks of architecture do not wash-up on beaches, John!’. On closer inspection, it was a section of a carved wooden beam, such as might be have been part of either an old house or a boat. The artefact probably made its way here from either the east coast of Ireland or further up the Welsh coast.
The body of a young man missing from Pwllheli was discovered on the beach on Sunday. These tragedies don’t happen often; but more often than you might imagine. Not all who the sea surrenders live to remember, like Ulysses.
9.00 am: This morning was set aside for listening to the relative loudness of the 16 tracts comprising Darkness, as heard on my Sound site at -50 dB. The objective was to establish consistency of presence. Which is not to be confused with the concepts of volume and loudness. While the sense of presence has a subjective dimension, it’s measurable acoustically, both on the graphic display of the Digital Audio Workspace and by the audient’s (my) ears. 3.15 pm: I could no longer hear with objectivity; I’ll review the fruit of my labour tomorrow morning.
July 30 (Thursday). One of the tracks infiltrated my dreams repeatedly last night. 8.00 am: Studyology. Writing and a review of the week’s work thus far. 9.15 am: Studiology. A review of yesterday’s attempt to establish unity of presence across the whole album. In an ideal world, I’d hand over this task to someone else whose ears I trust.
There are advantages and disadvantages to making something all on your own. Ultimately, the work will reflect both your virtues and your limitations, and yours alone. Film directors transcend this dilemma. Often, they work in collaboration with an assistant director, a cinematographer, a composer, sound engineers and editors, special effects designers, a production designer, a costume designer, a set builder, a script writer and editor, co-ordinators, runners, a gaffer, a best boy, a key grip, managers, producers, and promoters, among others. The end result is something that the director could not have achieved on their own. Solo visual artists, sound artists, musicians, performers, and authors often have to manage everything from making to marketing by themselves.
1.15 pm: Having listened to all 48 minutes (16 tracks × 3 minutes per track) of the album this morning, I added 2 seconds of silence to each on my Sound site software to create an intervening pause between them, and prevent an immediate run-on on playback. 3.00 pm: Upload completed. Afterwards, I corresponded with friends with skills and contacts who might contribute to the next sound project.
July 31 (Friday). 6.30 am:
An ambulation. Heaven and earth. In my head, with my feet on the ground.
9.00 am: I sense a tipping-point has been reached — a movement towards productive uncertainty (in many areas of my life). Change is often messy. The remnants of the past remain, for a very long time sometimes. ‘Review. Revise. Restate. Reject’. This is how I habitually process thoughts, actions, projects, and plans during these periods of transition. Self-scrutiny. (A very Protestant response.) It works, for me. But in an ideal world, I’d prefer to be talking to others about their lives and ambitions too, right now. Connections.
11.30 am: The priorities: 1. Approach the three remaining potential funders (and finalise the artwork for the cover and booklet, just in case I win this game); 2. Dig the foundations for the next sound project, but don’t begin it … yet; 3. Dismantle all studio equipment and clear the tables for what is to come; and 4. Make something, quickly; and 5. Continue to hope.
See also: Intersections (archive); Diary (September 15, 2018 – June 30, 2021); Diary (July 16, 2014 – September 4, 2018); John Harvey (main site); John Harvey: Sound; Studium; Academia; Facebook: The Noises of Art; Bluesky; Instagram; @Threads; YouTube; Archive of Visual Practice