I’ve just finished working with David Holmes on the soundtrack to a film called “Hunger”. It follows the last weeks in the life of the Irish hunger striker Bobby Sands, and is one of the most intense and uncompromising pieces of cinema I have ever seen. When we first watched it David and I looked at each other and said, ‘It doesn’t need any music’! But the director, visual artist Steve McQueen, fell in love with the sound of the hurdy-gurdy through a guitar amp, so the soundtrack has ended up being mainly these pure, minimalist, ‘unmusical’ tones. It’s my first proper credit as a film composer, and a pretty incredible one to start with. There was more film work earlier in the month when I got hired by Dario Marianelli (he just won the Oscar for ‘Atonement’) to provide some psychadelic guitar sounds for a new film called ‘Hippy Hippy Shake’. It was an interesting session because he hadn’t composed the music yet - what he wanted from me was a selection of ‘building blocks’ which he could work with. So although getting the textures was straight-forward, I had to make them as harmonically neutral as possible, so as not to suggest a composition. I also had to play lots of fingerpicky acoustic for him to chop up, but without any regualr accents - which was surprisingly difficult.

I did a couple of sessions at Bryan Ferry’s studio, working on some new material for I-know-not-what-exactly. There were lots of chaotic but promising bits on various tapes and I was helping sort them out and get them into shape. Again I found Bryan tremendous fun to be with in the studio. He flits in and out of the room a lot, which means he is a constant source of fresh perspective, but when he is particular about something you have his undivided attention until it is correct. I had him dancing around the studio a few times and that felt very good indeed. There was an interesting couple of hours working on a remix of ‘Casanova’; I got to hear the original vocals with the music stripped away, and bloody hell they’re good. Such an idiosyncratic and detailed delivery.

A few other bits - finishing off editing drums for the Eno/Hancock record; we’ve sentsome bits to Herbie and are awaiting his reactions. I did a day’s writing with Claire Nicolson, a singer I’ve known for a long time and who has just acquired funding for an album. A few tweaks to the American advert that is using my track ‘Spider’. And a few hours with Katie Melua, who was absolutely delightful and sweet even after selling 8 million albums, and who is looking to shake up her sound a bit next time.

Terrifying ordeal of the month was being asked to play as part of an iTunes Live event with kt Tunstall, Billy Bragg and Foy Vance. iTunes have been unbelievably supportive of me, and of course it was an unexpected honour to be in such exalted company - which made me all the more nervous. I am a bit out of practise playing my own stuff. Also there was precisely no time to rehearse the collaborations between Foy, kt and I. But kt was an absolute force of nature, marshalling her backing singers and drummer to help out, and Foy was magic. It’s amazing though, how I can be on stage in front of literally millions of people (like at the Diana concert), and feel no nerves whatsoever because I can see the back of a famous person’s head between me and the crowd, but move me to the front of the stage and I feel like I did the night before my A-levels.

Incidentally, I did an interview with the Daily Star recently (very nice and well-informed chap who rang me), but on reading it, when asked about Brian Eno I go on about what a great guy he is and gloss over his musical achievements. A similar thing has happened in other interviews. The reason for my doing this is, everyone already knows the guy is an absolute genius! But in case anybody misinterprets my silence as some kind of slight, here it is: I can’t even begin to say how much I love and respect his music, how much it continues to influence me, and what a lucky bugger I am to get to work with him and hang out. Right, I think I feel better now that I’ve assuaged my paranoia.

Since coming back from the tour I’ve been getting back to what I ike best – tinkering around in the studio. The Brian Eno/Herbie Hancock collaboration is going well; we added some spoken word elements and Arabic percussion, and I’ve been editing and arranging in preparation for further sessions in January. One day at Brian’s studio we got distracted by a clip that I shot in Australia of a Koala scratching its bum. Brian noticed that it looked as if the koala was playing air guitar, so we spent a happy hour putting a soundtrack together and uploading it onto Youtube – here

 The tour itself was, as ever, a combination of euphoria (amazing places, good friends, music) and bullshit (politics, hanging around, gruelling travel). On the last night of the tour Guy Pratt and I decided to go out and buy the cheapest guitars we could find, play them on the last song and then trash them onstage. In Cash Converters the shop assistant eyed us mockingly and asked, “Starting a band are we?” to which Guy replied, “No – finishing one”. The depraved act itself was incredibly cathartic, fun and symbolic in a personal way. Although for a few hideous moments it looked like the guitar wasn’t going to break.

 I’ve had a couple of sessions, for the amazing and up-and-coming Florence And The Machine, and the rather more established Tony Christie. I got to try out my beloved new acquisitions – the Bandura (Ukranian giant zither) and the Guitorgan (demented 60s guitar with an organ built inside of it). The combination of working on great music and at the same time seeming to make people happy is so special, and that is why at times like those I love my job so much.

 Lastly I’ve been continuing work on my folk album, The Grape And The Grain, adding the aforementioned new instruments and writing the last few tracks. Having not listened to any of it for a while, I was relieved to find that I liked everything more than I remembered. It’s interesting the way new tracks shed a different light on older ones. Although with the increasing decimation of the album as an art form I doubt the idea of context has as much relevance as it used to. 

I am on a plane to Australia. Probably should be trying to sleep, but being unwilling to medicate myself into inertia with free booze I’m doing this instead. It is the last leg of the Bryan Ferry tour; last week we were in Russia and Eastern Europe (fact: Vilnius in Lithuania is the only town in the world with a statue of Frank Zappa). I contracted some kind of weird muscular flu in my arms and legs, which meant I could hardly manage pull my shoes on let alone play the guitar – which made the gigs a bit of a struggle. It also put a crimp in the sightseeing, so I spent most of the days productively, editing stuff for Brian Eno. He did some jams last year with a group made up of Herbie Hancock, Squarepusher, Jon Hopkins and Steve Jones. The tracks are all over 30 minutes long and, though featuring many moments of demented genius, consist mostly of highly confusing (though terrifyingly proficient) arsing about. My job was to get them down to 6 or 7 minutes each, in order to send back to Brian and Herbie for further development. Instead of trying to make remixes with my stamp on, I wanted to keep the spirit of what was happening in the room – imagining how it would have been if everyone could read each other’s minds (or even just hear each other properly – according to Brian it was difficult on the day). There is a lot of humour in it, I’ve taken out much of the noodling, and I’ve never heard music quite like it before. God knows when or how the project will be finished, but I’m continuing to work on it.

I’ve been with Brian for the last 3 days working on the music for a film. He, Jon and I sat round in his studio improvising, and it was one of the loveliest sessions I have been involved with. I used to improvise with Jon back at school and we seem to have a real affinity. He is an extraordinary player who seems able to conjure actual colours out of his keyboard when he plays. Brian is a constant source of completely unexpected ideas – sometimes beautiful, sometimes violent, sometimes funny. The ‘pieces’ morphed from atmospheres into seemingly fully-realised compositions. We had a loosely enforced ‘3 minute rule’, where instead of meandering on, after 3 minutes something had to change. On the last day Brian tried a different approach, guiding us with chords he had written on a huge board and pointing to different ones in turn, composing as he went along. It was fascinating, moving and as always with Brian, simply great fun.

I recorded with a new artist called Florence (project name: Florence And The Machine). It is like a cross between Amy Winehouse and the White Stripes, in the best possible way. Produced by Steve and Ross who I met playing in Jarvis Cocker’s band, the sessions were a scream, mainly because of the wonderfully eccentric Florence herself. She brought with her a large tom-tom (which she claimed to have been practising for 2 weeks) and used it noisily and systematically to punctuate every line not only of what she sang, but also of what she said, for most of the two days. The recording method was refreshingly old-fashioned, with the 4 of us sitting in a large room and doing everything live. The sound was absolutely brutal. After playing back one of the songs to her manager (which ends with a wall of guitar mayhem), Florence pointed triumphantly at me and said “Can you believe all that noise came out of a nice young man like that?!”

Perhaps the highlight of the month though, and one of the highlights of my career really, was a concert at the Barbican called ‘Plague Songs”. Organised by David Coulter, it was a night of songs inspired by the Biblical plagues performed by a huge cast of artists including Rufus Wainwright, Patrick Wolf, Imogen Heap, King Creosote, Damon Albarn, Sandy Dillon, Roger Eno and The Handsome Family. I was in the house band, which was made up of some truly legendary musicians, many of whom I grew up listening to on my favourite Tom Waits records. A bizarre assortment of instruments littered the stage - musical saw (David is the world’s greatest saw player), alto flute, ondes martinot and crystal bachet among many others. We only had 2 days to get a 2-hour show together, but it was a breeze. The exception being Damon’s piece, which was rather tricky timing-wise. When all attempts at explaining it failed, he turned to me and said “You’re just going to have to follow me like a whore basically”. Too many highlights to mention; apparently there might be more concerts on the cards and I do hope so – it was amazing to be involved.

So… back to the 17-hour flight, perhaps a glass of red after all, and Die Hard 4.

As soon as I got off the Bryan Ferry tour I repaired to my basement to produce an album by the Smoke Fairies. It took all month and was a wonderful experience. They are a folk/dark bluegrass duo who sing and play 50s guitars. Recording it was sonic heaven, creating an intimate forest of plucked strings over which I played hurdy–gurdy, accordion, mandolin and harmonium. An intense period musically and psychologically, but I am really pleased with the results. Now they just have to find themselves a deal!

Then I had a bizarre couple of days doing sessions for an upcoming children’s cartoon series in which all the characters are in bands and fight each other with magical rays that emanate from their instruments (this is set in the future by the way). Each one had to have their own personality, which was great fun to design, and I got to dust off an utterly tasteless 80s monstrosity of an electric guitar which hadn’t seen the light of day for some time. The project is the brainchild of Magnus Fiennes, a genius programmer and film music guy who seems to somehow juggle hundreds of projects at once. I also did a little gig with Ed Harcourt at the legendary Ronnie Scott’s to mark the release of his Best–Of. As always it was like a warm, unrehearsed family reunion.

Finally there is a release date for my new record The Unrest Cure – January 21st. These things take time! So there is suddenly lots to do, from making a video of interviews with all the guest singers (and myself), to editing the Bingo Gazingo footage that I shot in New York and having meetings with another round of truly dynamic individuals in glass offices who have it with in their power to do wonderful things or, um, forget about me completely. A short update considering it’s been a while, but maybe that’s because I’m really satisfied with what’s been going on the last few weeks, and I don’t feel so compelled to try and make much sense of it.

I’m on a plane from Oslo to Monte Carlo. It’s the last few dates of the Bryan Ferry tour – no more gigs until the end of October, and I have to say that comes as a relief. The collective noun for a group of musicians should be a ’grumble’, and I am ashamed to say that I’ve been conforming to the stereotype recently. Not that I’m complaining – I am continually counting my blessings for being able to make a living out of music. The locations have become evermore luxurious (the last leg of the tour culminated in a few days off in the Algarve), but the gigs have, for me, become difficult purely because I’ve run out of ways to make it interesting for myself. And this is playing challenging, brilliant music. How the hell do people cope having to play for Girls Aloud all year? Luckily I had Chris Spedding to talk to and ask advice. He told me that even if you’re bored of the notes you’re playing, they are still good notes and the audience will enjoy it, so basically – act if necessary. Of course he’s right, and I’m always touched by his encouragement. But I don’t want to act – I want to be emotionally involved in every note I play, and recently there have been times when the music has contained about as much feeling as the buttocks of a man who has been set about at length with a carpet–beater. Maybe I’m just a spoilt brat. Anyway, last night was fun – a festival with hired equipment that didn’t work too well, my amp emitting a constant buzz that was louder than the guitar itself. This, along with a few glasses of wine, inspired reckless acts of abandon such as invading the viola player’s riser and dancing with the backing vocalists. I also, for once, came to the front of the stage for my solos – but that was because my amp sounded so awful that I just wanted to get away from it. At breakfast this morning Bryan came up to me and said “You were really great last night. Pissed, weren’t you?”

I had a wonderful few days in the studio, producing and writing with Iarla O’Lionaird for his next record. His singing is indescribably beautiful, and although at first its serenity seems utterly at odds with his frenetic, wildly enthused personality, I really think only someone who truly loves and enjoys life and other people as much as he does is capable of expressing such honesty and depth of feeling. His lyrics are all in Gaelic and some of them are taken from traditional Irish sources. One of the most interesting aspects of working with him is that he translates each section of the song for me, and describes how there need to be little touches in the music to reflect the meaning – a meaning which only a very few listeners will be able to understand.

In the meantime I had some legal issues to sort out with the new album, and did my first ’proper’ interview related to it, which can be found at rockfeedback.com