29th August

August 29, 2003

My first day back in the land of the lager louts started appropriately enough with a highly competitive indoor soccer game at the UEA.

Despite the potentially lethal combination of having had no exercise for three weeks and being subject to the Reuter Diet (like the Atkins Diet in reverse), my concentration was good and my team won. Cue delirious fanfare.

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The German experience was positive and energising and, so far, I’d say I’m making out pretty well on my Ezra Pound-esque quest to ‘make it new’ and do things differently.

The new songs and new arrangements of old songs have a strong focus and at this stage would definitely appear more album bound than egg bound.

‘Girl Of The Week’ has made the miraculous transition from tribal psychedelic Ambient epic to succinct disco rave-up. Modjo and Chic beware!

Of the new songs, ‘The Death Of Disco Dottie’ has a brooding menace which makes it seem something of a better dressed second cousin of No-Man’s ‘Wild Opera’ album, while ‘Skylight’ is an intensely spiritual tone poem. Based on a lovely Bernhard synth/gamelan synth sequence, my first take vocal and Markus’ loop additions make this amongst the strongest work we’ve done together.

The new mixes of the older Centrozoon material by Lee Fletcher and Derek DiFilippo are also very encouraging, especially Lee’s creation of a series of Industrial Ambient miniatures edited from our long improv sessions.

As I’ve suggested on other occasions, with the right balance of material, the album could be something special.

np:

Roy Harper – Valentine (1974)/ HQ (1975)

Neil Young – On The Beach (1974)/ Greendale (2003)
4Hero – Two Pages (1998)