17th March

March 17, 2006

Laid low with a persistent cold and a badly broken rib, I’ve finally decided to add to the ongoing chronicles of despair and rampant debauchery that are ‘the Bowness diaries’.

So here goes:

The year has definitely been a productive and pro-active one so far.

A lot of writing of new songs has taken place and quite a few potentially exciting live dates, collaborations and unexpected reissues look likely.

Of the new material, the project with Alistair Murphy has developed into something very strange and occasionally very lovely. Imagine Scott Walker sings Ligeti, Fripp & Eno go Folk Pop Flamenco, or maybe just t-bo loses the plot in rural Norfolk with a gargantuan headed Southerner (known to both friends and family as Megabonce). It’s been a wilfully experimental, creatively open and extremely enjoyable project, now nearly completed, but I’ve still no idea how it will be received, or what exactly it is. Good things, in many ways.

Another song has been written with Giancarlo Erra/Nosound and a gig in Rome has been arranged for the 29th April.

The new song, Change Me Once Again, is as epic and emotional as the last (Someone Starts To Fade Away), and perhaps represents a more romantic and richly melodic variation on aspects of the last two no-man albums and Nosound’s own Sol29. While the Murphy project leaves me questioning the potential response as well as my sanity, the Nosound collaboration has been a natural and sympathetic union that I believe has produced something that will communicate strongly to the majority of no-man and Nosound fans.

In other news, it’s looking likely that some work on the new no-man album will take place sometime in the Summer, and collaborations with Stefano Panunzi and Hector Zazou are also on the agenda.

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The Tonefloat vinyl version of Speak has finally arrived and it’s every bit as impressive as their vinyl edition of Together We’re Stranger. After the problems no-man have been having with other labels releasing badly packaged editions of our work, it’s been good to be associated with a company who have such high standards and are easy and straightforward to deal with (ditto Snapper).

Centrozoon are currently preparing an album of remixes, alternative versions and outtakes for Tonefloat, to be called Never Trust The Things They Do.

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Elsewhere, in my Burning Shed guise, I’ve recently been in contact with two very different, but equally talented Kevins, Kevin Moore (OSI/Chroma Key) and singer-songwriter Kevin Hewick (whose Such Hunger For Love album provided an ideal soundtrack to my teenage angst). Both of them seem on top of their game at the moment, and it’s been good to be in contact with musicians who still clearly love listening to and making music.

With any luck, we’ll be seeing both their names on the Shed site soon and by that time, I’m hoping that my rogue rib will have stopped wobbling like a Weeble inside my body.