Hello and Happy New Year. I’ve spent most of it so far working on a new record. It involves singing which is something I’ve not done much since I was a teenager. Thankfully I think my lyrics might have improved somewhat since then, but there is still wild oscillation between confidence and crisis. It can be hard doing everything in isolation – writing, producing, engineering and performing. And when you do build up the courage to play your nascent meanderings to someone, you have to make sure that someone will really give their true opinion instead of just doing the equivalent of smiling and nodding whilst slowly backing away. I’m keeping it under wraps for the moment but I’m excited. I feel like I learned a lot from the projects I worked on last year and it’s filtering through.

Some session work to see last year out: I did a day with the film composer John Powell (who did the Bourne films amongst many others). He wanted me to play in surround sound and it was a fantastic day of sound design and improvisation. I’d never played through 5 channels before and I found it hard to live with just two after experiencing it! I produced a couple more tracks for Claire Nicolson, the highlight being when the harmonica player from Alabama 3 turned up and nailed a first take of the most amazing harp playing I’d ever heard; instead of the usual suggestions and refinements I just went into the live room and shook his hand. I also spent a couple of days recording the new Ronan Keating album, which was an unusual experience. The whole thing was done live in 2 days with a 26-piece orchestra. My old teacher from the Royal Academy, Nick Ingman, was doing the arrangements and conducting, and as a string arranger myself it was a total pleasure to watch him work. Apart from the sheer elegance of the writing, these things are always something of an exercise in crowd control. Faced with a yammering roomful of people he didn’t shout, he just quietly said the word ‘sex’ and waited for everyone to tune in, before continuing with ‘thank you. Now, bar 22 please’. There was a bit of added pressure playing in that situation as they have a strict schedule to keep to and equally strict union rules about when the session has to be stopped. So if you make a mistake you can’t just punch in, everyone has to do it again.

On the live side, I did a gig with Beth Rowley at the O2 arena. Nice to be able to say I’ve played there, but overall it was the usual stadium experience of looking out from the stage into pitch black, dimly aware you’re somewhere huge, with disproportionately quiet sound. Then there was the splendid Twisted Christmas at the Barbican. A huge range of artists from Jarvis Cocker to Patrick Wolf, Foy Vance and the Smoke Fairies all interpreting Christmas songs, as smells specially concocted by Heston Blumenthal billowed around the stage. The band featured some of the guys from Tom Waits’s band, Roger Eno and Neil MacColl. Ralph Carney the sax player played something so brilliant in rehearsal that the whole band spontaneously applauded (whilst still trying to play their instruments). All very last minute, rehearsing right up to doors opening, but all the better for it and the best way to celebrate Christmas in my view.

I got some mixes together for the Brian Eno/Herbie Hancock project, but there is probably a bit further to go with the material and possibly some new tracks to come. fingers crossed it will be completed soon though.

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