I’m in The Carpenters Arms, my favourite pub in London. From a lofty position at the top of the charts, it just launched itself into the stratosphere with the introduction of a new small plates menu which includes a pint of delicious, sweet, fresh prawns with garlic mayo for £3.00. Unreal. Sitting with that and my usual Orval beer, I am the (paper hat) king of all I survey.

I haven’t posted since I took my family on a month-long odyssey through Japan in the summer. It was absolutely magic, and a brilliant time of exploration of the soul, finding peace and gratitude around the death of my mum in January 2018. Peace in acceptance of her passing, and gratitude for all the time I got to spend with her and the fact that she died with nothing left unsaid between us.

It’s been an interesting time since then. Before going away, I had concluded I wanted to completely pack in all web development and focus on music. I just couldn’t understand why I was finding it impossible to settle into that decision. On my return from Japan, I started work on two web projects I had agreed to a long time before, and found myself enjoying them immensely. Suddenly it dawned on me that I somehow need a bit of web development work in my life to keep things balanced. The perfectionist part doesn’t get much satisfaction from music (as music is definitely not a game of perfect) but does get it from writing code. 100% perfection is possible. I take a lot of pride in hand-crafting my code, finding great solutions for the little problems that each project presents, and I missed that. Ultimately, the enjoyment of those projects made me realise once and for all that I don’t need to choose between music and code – they are both part of me now, and I need them both around.

All that said, I have just agreed to go on tour with Imogen Heap for a chunk of this year, and have just finished doing some additional production work for an incredible trad band called Flook, so the music side is coming to the fore once again. I am excited about spending two months in the USA in late spring / early summer – playing great music, catching up with friends, adventures and new connections. We’re in each city for longer than usual, which should be a big plus.

I had a great time with my old bandmate from Spontaneous Dog, Richard Clements, producing his new single Bulletproof at my studio in Wapping. I first heard it on Soundcloud and thought it was a great track – his lyrics have been right on point this last few years and he has inspired me to get back to a bit more writing.

It’s about time I wrote something.

I pressed return twice to start this paragraph and thought about quitting on it… do I really want to write this stuff? Yes, I’ll keep going this time.

I last wrote in late November. Shortly after that, my mum got progressively more ill from the cancer she had, and died in January. I can say with all honestly that it destroyed me – there was nothing left by April.

There are patterns that follow grief of that depth. There are big things; the questioning of what life really is, the anger at the injustice of losing someone so close to me and so fucking amazing to the sheer awfulness of cancer. Then there is something much more pervasive – the emotional tug of small things; the quiet agony of phone calls that can’t be made, realising I can’t send her that cute picture of my daughter laughing in the sun, the knowledge that I will never get to play her any more music that I make. It feels like snagging your coat on a door handle each and every time. You can’t prepare for it, and you recover quickly, but at the moment it comes, it is a shock. I am finding some peace in it all, but very, very slowly, and I know it will be a long time – maybe a lifetime – before I truly get over it.

That cold UK spring was a bastard, only serving to exacerbate the general malaise. There were days I just couldn’t do anything. But for the most part, music was my salvation. I just decided to create something every day, be it a few lines of lyrics or a whole track. I would just make sure that by the time I left the studio (or sometimes the café) I would have something that wasn’t there that morning. New collaborations were the source of some real excitement, co-writing and co-producing with some very talented people. I have decided, however, to keep a lid on those things until it’s time. I hear mum’s voice in my ear telling me not to dilute the energy, to stay focused and get it done.

Boris’s album that I co-produced went to number one in Russia (downloads only, though, I think) which was cool.

I have also finally managed to get my records up on Spotify. Here’s Stars and Satellites, the chilled-out hypnotic loop that closes my second album Sayonara Deadweight. Leo Abrahams, my friend and collaborator, provides a fabulous guitar texture. Alan Van Kleef, now making amazing drums as VK Drums, played percussion, and Joanne Shaw sang some beautiful backing vocals. I played the other stuff.

Jimi Hendrix would have been 75 today. Is there an electric guitarist alive that hasn’t been touched by his awesome spirit and phenomenal playing? Of course I know the answer is yes, but I refuse to accept it. I have lots of guitarists I admire and being an effusive sort, I will often declare one or the other to be the best guitarist that ever drew breath. In all honesty I give that accolade to Prince, but Jimi comes a close second.

Simon Shepherd, a boy in my class in Bangor Grammar School, made me a C90 cassette mixtape in 1988, shortly after I’d started playing guitar. Side A was “Are you Experienced” by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and Side B was “Vivid” by Living Colour. He had amazing taste in music for a shy Scottish kid living in a basement room in suburbia, and he changed my life. Sadly he is no longer with us, but wherever you are, Shep, thanks for blowing my fucking mind.

The highlight of the Jimi record was “Red House”. I couldn’t believe that anyone could play like that, and I still find it hard to comprehend. So much has been said and there’s nothing I can add, really, so I’ll stop there.

It’s been an amazing time since the (ahem) last proper post here. I’ve been producing an album for Boris Grebenshchikov, and it has been an amazing journey so far. He’s a great guy – an enigma, a fascinating dude to work with. I’m not sure how much I want to write about it until the record is done, feeling that any dilution of energy is wrong. I fucked that up royally on the Ramshackle Crow record – gave so much away, showed the magic behind the scenes, and weakened it to the point where it could only die. I won’t do that again. I learned many things working with Bryan Ferry, and one was to keep everything under wraps until it was truly ready – the moment of reveal was something to be treasured. You need your confidence – no “sounding out the audience” or shaping the record by committee. And I get that now. I have started work on rebuiling the Ramshackle Crow album, as I love the songs – but this time it will be what I originally wanted it to be; a minimal, lean, mean sound of analogue synths and DADGAD guitar.

This is the first version of Red House that I heard from Shep’s tape. In the classic way that music imprints itself on your soul, this will always be the definitive version, despite being a lot less common than the other take. There is unreal energy in this.

Always the same, isn’t it? Start a new blog. Write like a madman, regularly. Then it stops, and before you know it, the timestamps on posts are three years old.

However, in this case, I have an excuse for the recent hiatus. I was on holiday in Italy for two weeks, and genuinely offline; the house where we were staying is at the top of a long windy road right up at the end of a valley. Amazing for stargazing, not so good for mobile signal. The “No Service” indicator was on for most of the trip, and to be honest, was more than welcome.

I love going to Italy, particularly Piemonte. It’s not touristy, and is an absolute haven for those who like their food and wine. One of my favourite red wines in the world comes from a vineyard just outside San Marzano Oliveto – Franco Mondo. It was a treat to witness the vendemmia (wine harvest) of the moscato grapes by Valerio Mondo. We got to taste both the moscato and barbera grapes straight from the vine, followed by a relaxed tasting of the wines they are used to produce. There was a magic to that I can’t quite describe. When Valerio poured the chilled moscato d’asti it was just a delight to make that immediate connection with the vineyard a couple of hundred yards away.

Other than that, it was just an endless stream of relaxed times… the deliciousness of Aperol Spritzes in the garden at sunset, stargazing – minds blown by the Perseid Meteor shower, the finest pizza, ice cream, foods of all kinds… the market in Nizza, the sunshine, swimming in the river, kids collecting fresh figs from the trees for breakfast. It all feels like a lifetime ago but it’s coating the inside of my soul and will be there for some time to come.

Now I’m back in Forest Hill, road works going crazy out there. The grind of blades against concrete is the soundtrack to this sunny day, but it will take a lot more than that to annoy me right now. Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks is playing, and I can feel the summer breeze through the window. I’m just about to start a geek musician adventure of trying to create some of my own plugins using Max for Live, but I need my brain to accelerate from the snail’s pace it has adopted during the holiday. Somehow I don’t think that will be today.

I’m back in Bangor visiting my mum for a few days. Having left the grey drizzle of late July in London, it is a bit of a delight to have landed in Northern Ireland when it is as beautiful and sunny as it is right now. Last night I walked around the sea path to Crawfordsburn beach, bringing back many memories of such walks with friends back in the day. It’s picture perfect coastline round there.

It’s been a fun week. Last Wednesday I hooked up with my friend Leo Abrahams to work on the track for Boris Grebenshchikov. I had two production routes for it, and we developed both to the point where I could leave the studio and complete them. Production is such a crazy beast – you can really take a track anywhere you want, as long as you build around its soul. In Boris’s case it’s so easy as it’s all about his characterful voice. Now we are just going to wait for him to come to London and present the two approaches to the track. Hopefully he’ll be excited, and if all goes according to plan, a bit shocked.

My son finished primary school on Friday. Can’t believe it’s over already. The teachers of the school all gathered up at The Dulwich Woodhouse pub for an end-of-year drink, and with our favourite ever teacher leaving this year, everyone was a bit of an emotional wreck by the close of play. I headed into town to do a photo shoot with Matt Rudd, as a model for his latest experiments with coloured dots – I’m helping him build software to create these works and we’ve been loving doing it. Some examples on his website or Instagram.

Now the dentist. It’s my cousin. He’s going to give me dog’s abuse so I’m preparing myself psychologically.

https://youtu.be/vhQkku7jLfo

And here we all are, sliding towards the weekend with tired smiles and hope brimming over the edges.

I’m at my deskspace in Forest Hill Library, just about to head up north on the London Overground to meet my partner-in-crime Matt Rudd for some pale ale and table tennis at Shoreditch House. I love working here in the library. It’s a dedicated room at the back – quiet, air-conditioned, super-friendly and with delightful little touches like a key to the secret garden where the scent of summer flowers and the sight of industrious bumblebees is the perfect antidote to anything you care to name. Some days, new mums come in with their little babies for sing-songs and book reading groups, which is a lovely thing to hear on the way to make a cup of tea. We have to head to the basement for that, and the kettle is so rubbish I’ve just ordered some fancy Breville one-cup boiling water dispenser thing from Amazon.

There are also some excellent spaces beyond the garden, used for events and performances. I’m hoping to snaffle one of them to put on the ambient guitar gig I did with Jules Maxwell in France earlier this year. We want to do Noyelles in France, London, Aberfeldy and Bangor. Watch this space.

I’m listening to disc 2 of David Sylvian’s charming record, Gone to Earth. The guitars are great.

Speaking of Jules Maxwell, he dropped in to our house this-morning for a cup of tea. He has been living in France for some time, but when he comes to London he always leaves his car in our street (he used to be my upstairs neighbour in golden times). I just finished putting about twenty tracks of backing vocals on a track of his – The Boy who Cried for the World which will be on his next album. It’s one of my favourites songs of all time. We performed it as part of a show called Fat Girl Gets a Haircut at The Roundhouse some years ago, and it always gave me shivers.

While working on the cinematic ident this week, I had to do a lot of research to find some great springtime birdsong. Eventually I found this delightful recording of the dawn chorus by a very fine fellow called Peter Toll, and that’s the one we’re going to use. Peter is a specialist in nature recordings, with some very interesting experiments on Soundcloud, including a “dub in nature” thing where he creates an awesome dub baseline from a skylark’s song slowed down so it is six octaves below the original. I love people.

Northern Irish people don’t do sun.

Maybe that should just be “I don’t do sun”. I do truly love it, but inevitably get toasted. Yesterday, following a period of paddle boarding with some friends down near Folkestone, I was sporting a pair of legs that were exactly on the halfway line between hilarious and excruciating. Purest red you’ve ever seen. The archetypal lobster look, the one reserved for northern twats who fail to apply sunscreen in appropriate quantities. I could hardly put on my jeans by the end of the day for the drive home. Today hasn’t been much better, walking about with a slight wince on my face as the denim chafes away at those dreadfully burnt pins.

I’ve been working on a cinematic ident. It’s a tricky thing to pull off – the sonic equivalent of a logo. It has to say a lot in a very short space of time and with a minimum of fuss. The main difficulty is finding something memorable within that time – and not just some crazy sound, as it needs to be completely at one with the visuals. I want this one to be musically very simple, but texturally very rich, inspired by certain moments in the track below, the marvellous Stokkseyri by Jonsi and Alex. David Holmes played me this stuff years ago and it blew my mind.

In other news, I made a drip irrigation system for my tomatoes from a five litre water container, some silicone gel and aquarium fittings. It works. Win.

It’s been a couple of days of digital bliss. No Facebook. No Twitter. No Instagram. Just silence. Silence and sunshine, as the London heatwave returns with a delicious vengeance. What is it about the heady combination of a heatwave and Wimbledon being on? I love it. It just screams SUMMER.

In the past couple of weeks, Ed Sheeran quit Twitter following a torrent of abuse after Glastonbury, a teenager died during some prank to get more followers on YouTube, and another man was arrested for dangling his baby off the edge of a skyscraper unless he got more Facebook likes.

These are of course high profile cases, but it’s clear to see that some people do really care about their personae on social media to the point where they become a lens through which they view their own self-worth. At a much lower level, you can imagine some teenager posting a photo on Instagram, waiting for the likes to start coming in, and feeling upset when they don’t, exacerbated by the fact that their friend is getting loads of likes (‘and their photo is just shit’). I am wondering how I am going to help my son (now 11) to stay focused on creating work from his own soul and being proud of it whatever happens, once he hits his teens. I’m seeing, perhaps for the first time, just how dangerous social media truly is.

I sometimes think about Ed Sheeran, how weird it must be to have reached the zenith of everything you ever wanted at such a young age. I am an admirer, not a fan. I find Galway Girl just as irritating as the next guy. However, he comes across as a very down-to-earth guy who has just stuck to his guns throughout this crazy whirlwind to which he has been exposed. His success is unfathomable to me, a once-in-a-generation mix of luck, timing, personality and (it has to be said) talent.

I genuinely felt his frustration after Glastonbury that so many people just didn’t get the whole looping thing. By being incredibly good at this technique, he had people convinced he was using backing tapes, and was subjected to the most horrendous abuse on Twitter. That’s just insane. It’s like a magician on television being accused of video trickery. But isn’t it interesting that once technology gets involved on stage and people lose the connection between the performer and their instrument, they start to sense fakery? Anyway, I was sorry to see all that – yet another example of social media at it’s worst.

The best looping thing ever done, in my opinion, was KT Tunstall doing Black Horse and the Cherry Tree on Jools Holland. It was spellbinding. You could just see it building and it was so well judged – just enough to turn the track into something extraordinary but not so much it became some kind of technical exercise. Brilliant. I also liked how she called her Akai Headrush pedal (the looper) ‘wee bastard’.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGT0A2Hz-uk