Sticks and sticky rice

With so many sad and bad things going on in the world I should feel guilty for admitting I've had a good week. The main reason for this burst of goodness is that I'm away from the day job and, best of all, I've converted the spare room into a mini-studio and have been recording the music that's been building up in my head for the past six months. Ideas that I've been playing around with are finally taking shape on my humble 16 track recorder. The Chapman Stick Bass, bass guitar, found sounds on minidisc, drum loops and the fab Kaoss pad are being layered and processed and edited until they sound like the sounds in my head. It's been a highly rewarding week so far.

On Monday night J and I went to the Mount Fuji restaurant near Swindon. The Honda factory is nearby and the restaurant along with the hotel it is part of are owned by the car factory and visited by its executives. Luckily for us it is also open to the public so we were able to enjoy a fab platter of sushi, sashimi, eel, noodles, aubergine, sticky rice and weird Japanese ice-cream. It was a great meal, and when I return I'm planning on letting someone else drive so I can have a glass or two of sake.

Hopefully, if all goes to plan I should have an album's worth of music by the weekend. Stay tuned.