Editing Sound

God only know how many hours I have sat and chopped up sound waves, saving them here and there, abandoning the click track, realising that I've accidentally moved something that didn't need to be moved, listening, listening, listening. 

I stopped in despair at 5 p.m. thinking everything I did had been useless and I might have to abandon the track. 

But I've just bounced off a listening copy, and while there's still a lot to be done, it's nowhere near as bad as I'd thought. It deserves a new vocal, I think. Thursday and Friday will probably be vocal days. It's been a week since I've sung. That was at a nice night at wonderful Scaledown, where I sang a couple of new songs that I have been terrified of singing and they went down a treat. The evening started with Andy Golding who plays a twelve string guitar and made me rethink my former aversion to the instrument: could have been the chords he was playing, but it sounded really lush. Following him were the Pampered Hamsters, Joe 91 (hello Joe! In London!) and Ian Moss (Four Candles) who gave us spoken word and soundscapes full or character and atmosphere. Montague Armstrong played some of their Hammond Hits and went down a storm; Steven Ball gave us song and electronics. The Mulgapigs from Sheffield played nifty synth pop and the whole evening was most genially presented by Mark, Kevin and Jude. It was lovely to see Simon and Kim, and I suspect Simon will be playing there sometime soon- and Joe will probably be back, because Scaledown is irresistible. there is something very relaxing about its honesty and informality. Three cheers!

Here are some pics to prove that it really happened:

So the next thing I have to think of is what to call this album. I now have fourteen songs, many of which were written during lockdown, either for Song Circle or just appearing randomly in my head. I wrote two in the middle of fields on lockdown walks, and another in the woods. One is an old one which was recorded as an instrumental, but it always had words and I've just re-recorded it with the words in place. Two are inspired by books: Underland and The Hidden Life of Trees. Part of one materialised after a conversation in Glasgow with a person who was dreaming their way through an ecstasy journey. There are two protest songs of sorts. Oh, it's a veritable selection box of musical and lyrical excursions! And what should the cover look like, etcetera etcetera. Should I do a drawing or have a photograph on the sleeve?

Oh I don't know. I'm going to watch TV now.