Being a musician isn’t usually too physically demanding (except on the liver), but today I am racked with pain in the back and hand after several days of writing orchestral arrangements and copying parts for Ed Harcourt’s next album. Aside from that, I just love arranging. There’s unprecedented freedom and opportunity to shape every aspect of a song. On this occasion there are so many hidden musical gems in the bass, piano and trumpet parts that a lot of my job has been picking out all my favourite bits and orchestrating them into the forefront. It feels like grown-up colouring-in. We also did more recording at the wilfully retro Toerag Studios; one of the tracks I played on, “Visit From A Dead Dog” also featured amazing guitar from Graham Coxon.

The last two weeks have seen a couple of projects get tied up after long waits – James Wolfe and Cinema Strange/Sexgang (see below). Also I played a couple of gigs at the Edinburgh Festival with Petra-Jean Phillipson. It’s a great setup in that band; the other guitar player is Simon Tong (ex-The Verve). He takes care of all the chords & parts, leaving me free to add laptop textures, pump organ, percussion and backing vocals to my heart’s content. The atmosphere in the band onstage is the calmest I’ve ever encountered; much of that emanates from Petra and it makes for an even more intense musical experience, much more pure than those gigs where you’re worrying about screwing up/those people in the front row/whether it’s coming across…

A strangely fragmented week. Did a session for Fred Ball (Pleasure), the Norwegian keyboard professor; started a record with the absurdly multi-faceted Steve Jones had a gig of my own in a rowdy Hackney bar (beery punters-1, sensitive guitarist-0); made some demos with the resident genius in my life James Wolfe who writes story songs in the vein of Weill, Brecht and Nick Cave; and produced a single for Andi Sexgang, in whose band of misfits I used to play. Andi delivered a vocal so passionate and theatrical that the engineer and I both started first laughing, then crying. This is a man who has the ability to channel pure ecstacy, and it’s a frightening but wonderful thing to behold! The single is a cover of an old German song called ‘Criminal Tango’, in collaboration with Cinema Strange. It will probably be out in about 4 years’ time…

I’ll leave you with a stirring quote from Andi: “Do not fear the Industry, they work for you and the music, not the other way round. To them you are a bandit, so be a bandit and let them fear you. Express yourself truthfully and with panache, do not be afraid to do what you want to do. Experiment and push the boundaries. Be a warrior, not a slave.”