Leave me now.
Leave me now
Hope is gone,
All my time’s run out.
(Moby, ‘Hope is Gone’)
5.15 am: I awoke; my mind racing. Since it was in gear, I returned to my desk and pushed on with those feedback reports that I’d not completed yesterday evening. 7.00 am: Showered:
8.00 am: A phone call from the family on the day of my mother-in-law’s funeral. 9.00 am: This present batch of feedback forms complete, I caught up with emails and the timetable for marking and exam board meetings during the next few weeks. 10.40 pm: Off to the School to sit-in on a second year assessment tutorial.
The exhibition areas were quiet, for the most part. Families and friends, some who had travelled a great distance to see a loved-one’s work, manoeuvred around the stalls, nodding approvingly, and speaking to one another in hushed tones. One ought to be respectful in the presence of art. Honour given to the work passes to the maker thereby.
11.30 pm: Job done, I returned to homebase, an earlier than usual lunch, a short nap, and my desk. I wanted (that’s to say, hungered) to hear again the mix for The Biblical Record. What I would hear after over a week’s absence would be salient. Therefore, I paid close attention. I needed not only a good but also an honest ear:
When I reach the point where I can no longer tell whether the mix can be improved, I stop. Today, I’m no longer aware of the sweat and toil expended on the compositions’ construction. They sound effortless … as they ought. This is another indication that the work has achieved independence. Once the CD is published, the creative umbilical cord will be cut finally. There’s a small moment in The Lesser Light that sounds like male operatic singing. Quite sublime. The sound results from an extended stretch of Scourby speaking the word ‘moon’. For some time. I’ve glimpsed in that fragment the beginning of the next project. In every project are planted the seeds of the next.
After dinner and my evening work session, I’ve been watching again David Lynch’s extraordinary TV series Twin Peaks: The Return. This time, I’m more conscious of Lynch’s sound design (as distinct from Badalamenti’s music). His trademark evocations of air under pressure and dirty electricity are present throughout. He’s a master.
7.30 pm: I drew together some of the submissions for the Vocational Practice module that had arrived, and then began listening to the album tracks on a different sound system in the studio. I was closing in on my quarry.