Much of the last month or so has been spent with Brett Anderson, producing and co-writing his album. It’s been a real pleasure and quite a departure for both of us, and I’m fairly reluctant to describe the direction of it – partly because it will spoil the surprise, and partly because part of the fun of the process is deviating from the ‘plan’. But we have most of it written now I think, some of the songs being conceived by Brett and then developed by me, and some starting with a musical idea of mine which he then takes away and works on. It’s always a thrill to hear that iconic voice coming through the speakers in my studio, and we’re becoming regulars in the local cafes, although we’ve become slightly wary of the one that sells giant, indigestible potatoes.

There have been a few film sessions too. I worked with a Jack C Arnold, playing guitar on his beautiful score to a film called “The Scouting Book For Boys” which promises to be an amazing film. A lot of the music called for extremely quietly played acoustic guitar, which I had to time by looking at a white bar moving across the movie. So it was a case of looking from music to hand to screen whilst trying to make as little extraneous noise as possible. In fact the hardest part was stopping my stomach from making all the little noises that stomachs make, that are undetectable until amplified alarmingly by hyper-sensitive microphones. They probably have some editing to do. I also did a day with a composer called Daniel Pemberton for the tv show “Runaway”. Most of that was on ukelele, and I got to sit next to the harpist whose playing was distractingly mesmerising.

I went straight from the ukelele session to what I thought was a meeting with Chris Martin… but it turned out to be a proper writing/recording session with him and Natalie Imbruglia. I think they were expecting me to turn up with all my crazy instruments and laptop effects, and all I had with me was a ukelele. But we ended up getting plenty done over the next few days. Chris was an absolute pleasure to work with, very funny and sweet. The first time I sat down to play something he said, “Well I’ve heard a lot about you so you’d better be f*cking good, ” to which I replied “I could say the same to you”. It’s easy to see why he’s so successful though, he’s a bit of a force of nature and I hope I get to experience it again.

I played in Marianne Faithfull’s band for a BBC special she did a couple of weeks back. We had to get 25 songs together with minimal rehearsal and it was a bit of a scary gig. Also I had to do it without shoes because I’d sprained my ankle after falling over whilst unloading my gear so I can only hope the viewing audience won’t be treated to shots of my bright blue socks (I should have planned ahead I know). I had a crutch during rehearsals and Marianne took to referring to me affectionately as ‘my little cripple’. Though thankfully not during the show.

There was a week of sessions for an album by the legendary avant-garde French chanteuse Brigitte Fontaine which was just fantastic, and a good example of the perfect way to make a record in my view – great studio with loads of old gear in it, wonderfully funny, relaxed and capable producer (Ivor Guest, who I met doing the Grace Jones record) and brilliant band including David Coulter, Seb Rochford and Tom Herbert, and another Leo guitarist from LA whose industrial but thoughtful style was a real revelation for me. I got to play loads of instruments from vibes to bass stylophone, and all this was just a backdrop for Brigittes heart-wrenching and scabrous tales of degradation.

A couple of other sessions with Beth Rowley finishing off some writing demos, and a new artist called Gary Go who wanted some epic-sounding guitars, and that’s about it for this month. Actually one more thing: I did a gig with Kathryn Williams, which I only got asked to do on the day as Neil MacColl wasn’t able to do it at the last minute. There was no way I was going to be able to recreate all Neil’s parts so I went for a moody ‘reverb and tremolo’ approach. The songs they do together are so memorable and flowing that I was able to get the whole set under my belt during the soundcheck, and with Kathryn leading the way the gig was both fun and somehow charged. After a year of mostly being in the studio it helped me get in the mood for doing more performance, perhaps of an improvised nature. So we’ll see if I can do some of that in March.

Sorry to drone on, if anyone got this far. I just do this for myself really, so that I can keep track of where the time has flown away to.

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.

I’ve just returned from Russia where I was invited to play a couple of shows as part of the excellent Muzenergo Festival. It’s been a long time since I played any of my own music and it was something of a surprise to me how well it went down. I’ve always been quite selfish and insular in writing and performing, not really taking into account that what I do might be experienced, let alone appreciated, by others – so I was really touched by the response. I was also impressed by how passionate the organisers, and everyone I met there, were about discovering and supporting new music. In a country where Amazon and iTunes have not yet utterly saturated consumers’ consciousness, there is a different kind of inquisitive spirit. The whole thing inspired me to write 3 songs at the airport on the way home, and strengthened my resolve to do much more to promote my next record which comes out in February. Then today it was straight back into the ‘day job’, doing strings for the Sugababes, trying to make one violinist (albeit a brilliant one) sound like an orchestra. Credit crunch affecting the budgets even of top pop stars apparently.

By contrast, an air of freedom, relaxation and luxury pervaded at Bryn Derwen studios in idyllic Snowdonia, for the recording of Kathryn Williams’ album. It was just a magical experience – we did the whole record in 3 days, almost entirely live. Kate St John had assembled a brilliant team of people, including Martyn Barker on percussion (who plays on my new album) and Neil Macoll, who is easily the finest acoustic guitarist I have ever worked with and has loads of other sounds at his disposal too. Working with him was a particular joy. The engineer David Wrench achieved the near-impossible combination of fantastic sound with minimal fuss, and even revealed a rare talent for reading the shipping forecast in a strangely sexy way (‘Tyne Dogger, rough or very rough’).

The shipping forecast turned out to contain pertinent information for me, as I had to sail from Wales over to Dublin to do a concert with Gavin Bryars. He is a true living legend of a composer, and it was a privilege that he had included parts for me in a new song cycle conceived for Iarla O’Lionaird. Although I’ve spent a good deal of time standing in front of classical string players, it is so different to be part of the ensemble, to feel how unfamiliar and nuanced the flow and movement of these groups is, and to recognise how much more focused your concentration has to be. Having come from a situation of complete freedom the day before, it was actually pretty scary to be plunged into one where utter precision is called for, and on the first day I felt I was in way over my head and got very depressed. It came together (more or less) for the performance, and while I wasn’t satisfied by my level of accuracy, I did at least manage to do what I’ve wanted to try for a long time – integrating electric guitar textures with acoustic instruments in a sypmpathetic way, without sacrificing the integrity of the sound. I think this is something that would be impossible without playing through a laptop; whenever guitar amps are involved I find the sound too directional, and either raucous or castrated. Hopefully we’ll play the piece again and i’ll get a chance to do everything really properly.

I spent a few days with a couple of new artists – a guy called Joe on Rough Trade who seems to have somehow channelled the spirit of Ella Fitzgerald into his 17-year-old larynx, and Liam Gerner who has a lovely line in thought-provoking but gutsy acoustic rock. It’s a nice feeling to go in and try and help people by being, essentially, a fresh pair of ears. And I managed to crowbar the hurdy-gurdy in at one point which is always satisfying. I also finished a set of mixes for the Eno/Herbie Hancock project. It’s still not quite fully formed, but it’s getting closer. I hope. Brian and I are both extremely excited about it – there is something truly ‘new’ about it. I realised that today it has been underway for almost exactly 2 years – the first sessions were in November 2006, then Brian handed me the files to start sorting out this time last year, and it’s been intermittently honed ever since.

And finally, some more film work this month. I finished mixing and tweaking the score I wrote with David Holmes for ’5 Minutes Of Heaven’, did some work with Jon Hopkins on a possible Warp Films project, and had a few guitar sessions with Alex Heffes for the new Russell Crowe film ‘State Of Play’. Random Russell Crowe fact: I once encountered him backstage in Santa Monica at a Neil Finn concert when I was doing the support slot with Ed Harcourt. We were watching from the wings when Russell wandered up to do the same. He didn’t acknowledge us but he did do one of the most dreadful farts it has ever been my misfortune to be in the vicinity of, which resulted in our immediate departure. Perhaps that was his tactic.

I’m sitting in Belfast airport, having spent a couple of days finishing a film score with David Holmes. Luckily most of the stuff we wrote last time round ended up getting used, so now it’s just a case of tailoring each piece to fit the scenes. We had a bit of time left over today so we started work on a new track for my next album, based on some samples from David’s incredible collection of obscure vinyl. It’s a new way of writing for me and it has inspired me to write lyrics, which is just what I need.

All of last month was spent doing another film score, with Brian Eno and Jon Hopkins. I haven’t yet seen Brian’s involvement with the film mentioned anywhere like iMDB, so I can’t really say what it is. But I can say that one of the highlights was discovering that Brian is an uncannily good whistler. He stunned the rest of us into silence by first composing a beautifully acrobatic and complex melody, then whistling it faultlessly. He put it down to his ‘postman gene’ (the profession runs in his family). We had a lot of fun doing what could easily have become a really pressured job. It was a good mixture of improvising, editing and classical orchestration and there got to be quite a production line going at times, with Brian emailing new pieces through, Jon working away in his studio, me with a string quartet in the basement, and Peter Chilvers liaising with the music editors. Again, frustratingly, I can’t say too much more about the working method here. But, in contrast to working with David, we hardly looked at the film at all while we were working, and that seemed to lead to some happy accidents when the music was eventually put to picture.

More film stuff – I had another guitar session with Dario Marianelli, who did the score to ‘Atonement’. I nervously asked if I could have a look at his Oscar as I’d never seen one before, and he let me pick it up. It was ridiculously heavy. He ostensibly has a very ‘classical’ approach to film composition, but he also uses uncontrolled elements brilliantly. He got me to play a sequence of very neutral patterns, and I couldn’t see where it was going, but he then combined them and added them to other elements he had (which I’d not been shown), and the result was magical with the picture.

I also had a session for a film called ‘Nutcracker’ – a big-budget, CGI musical version of Tchaikovsky. When I got booked, they told me it would be ‘just a bit of rhythm guitar’. But I arrived to find a couple of top-class, but decidedly tense-looking session players, and an extremely complex ream of music on my stand. I’d had a few drinks the night before and the whole situation began to resemble a bad dream – there were tempo changes, strange rhythms, unpredictable click tracks blaring through the headphones, and the guitar had to be tuned weirdly so none of the notes on the page fell on the instrument where they usually do. The composer was Eduard Artemyev, a legendary figure in Russia from the Soviet era. He is a wonderful man, and knows exactly how to write the kind of film music that makes you feel really excited. Luckily I know a bit of Russian so when I fouled up an entry, I managed to splutter ‘Sorry, I’m not ready yet’ in Russian and it went down quite well. I went back for an overdub session a couple of weeks later and it was a lot easier. They had recorded the orchestra by then, and it was mind-blowing playing over the top of that. Definitely one of those ‘I love my job’ moments.

David Coulter of musical saw fame kindly asked me to work on the soundtrack to a theatre piece with him. Working together had been long overdue and I learnt a lot from him. He plays a great number of instruments and approaches them in an intriguingly merciless way, treating them unsentimentally, like tools. He has this great physicality about him – making music out of found objects, and just his mouth and hands, which takes a lot of balls to do successfully.

My dear friend Imogen Heap invited me over to play on her new record. Some of the session was filmed and can be seen on her video blog. She was the first person I worked with (when we were both 19) and she’s partly responsible for the ‘sound design’ aspect of what I do. There was very little guitar in her music then so I ended up trying to impersonate various other things, and she used to say ‘can you make the guitar sound like an elephant’ and stuff like that. She’s also the kind of producer who can take what you play and change it beyond all recognition, but this time I think it might stay like it is.

I did some recording with Magnus Fiennes, for the tv series ‘Hustle’. It’s quite influenced by the ‘Oceans’ films, so I brought all the gear I used on Oceans 12, including a fuzz pedal that in LA eventually resolved an intense 2-day struggle to find the right distortion sound. By midnight everyone in the studio was rocking out and half-drunk, and the session only ended when Mag unfortunately spilt a glass of wine into his laptop.

A bit more writing with Beth Rowley and a gig with Iarla O’Lionaird where the support act was a man who climbed into a giant balloon, and that’s about it for this instalment. I just went to the airport bar and ordered a large glass of red. The guy behind the bar said ‘I wouldn’t like to pay that price for a drink so I’ll just charge you for a small’. Only in Ireland would that happen – I love it!

I have just emerged from the unforgettable mammoth voyage that was Hal Wilner’s Rogues Gallery Live. 3 concerts, 60 sea shanties, and more performers than you could shake a cutlas at. At one point Lou Reed, Tim Robbins, Shane MacGowan, the Carthy Family, Neil Hannon, Gavin Friday, Chris Difford and many more were all onstage, and I thought I had to be dreaming. Too many highlights to list really, but playing hurdy-gurdy with Lou Reed is worth a mention. At rehearsal he prowled onto the stage, and told the band: “I do not want to have to follow you at all. You will follow me. I will change the chords and the timing without warning and you need to keep up. If that sounds like fun, then play. If that doesn’t sound like fun, don’t play anything“. It sounded like fun, and we did play, and he seemed to like it. Random observations I made: he has a pair of glasses whose lenses flip up and down and he likes to play with them a lot; he has unexpectedly soft hands and is very courteous and gentle under a gnarled exterior; he has a phenomenal sense of tempo, disregarding the ubiquitous metronome in search of the ‘sweet spot’; he really likes hurdy-gurdy. The house band included David Coulter on (literally) show-stopping saw, Roger Eno on piano, euphonium and naughty crosswords, Andy Newmark (from Bryan Ferry’s band) on drums, Martyn Barker (who plays on my next record) on percussion, Dudley Phillips on bass and Kate St John on accordion. at the Dublin show all the artists crowded in at the back of the stage just behind my amp to watch the show, and the atmosphere was amazing. It was truly a privilege to be there.

Earlier in the month I went to Belfast to work on a film score with David Holmes. The director is Oliver Hirschbiegel who did ‘Downfall’. It is mostly bass and laptop guitar textures. I took the files away to mix at home, and we’ll get together again in a few weeks to do the remaining cues. I also had a session with Annie Lennox. Before she arrived the band set up and got an arrangement going, and it sounded good, if a bit ‘session musician-y’. Then she walked in and quietly but firmly changed the direction of the whole thing, explaining her ideas gently then pounding the shit out of an upright piano to demonstrate. It was brilliant to be playing with that unmistakable voice coming through the headphones. A weird guitar solo was called for, and again she directed things very eloquently; a couple of times I messed up at the end and swore, which made me feel guilty.

I did some more recording with Beth Rowley, and her drummer Phil Wilkinson, who adds strange bits of junk to his drumkit to devastating effect. She asked me to do a couple of gigs with her to fill in for her regular guitarist, so I had to learn the set on the morning of the first show. Then I found out the show was televised and it was a bit nerve-wracking. I can’t help it, no matter how many times I do tv it always makes me nervous. Even in the days when I did terrible miming jobs which didn’t involve actual playing, I used to worry about falling over instead. The other gig was at T In The Park which turned into a bit of a reunion as lots of old friends were there playing with other bands. Then I went to a session with a great film composer called Alex Heffes. He is making a record of improvisations with various people all over the world, from Uganda to New York. He wanted some sounds from me to tie certain elements together without compromising the purity of the interactions, so it was an interesting exercise – I had to be very discreet, but still contribute something tangible. I ended up on tracks featuring Ryuichi Sakamoto and Regina Spektor.

The artwork to my next record The Grape And The Grain is nearly ready, although I don’t think it will be out until after Christmas now. I’ve been writing again, and I got a brilliant new Swart amp which has been inspiring me. I have a lot of ideas floating around at the moment which have been driving me a bit mad, so I’m just trying to get them all down roughly so that they can be experienced in reality instead of in my head. Inevitably, some of them come out and I wonder why I devoted so much time mulling them over when in fact they’re a bit crap, but there are plenty that I want to keep working on. David Lynch talks about “staying true to the idea” – meaning that at every single stage you need to cling fiercely to the essence and feeling of the initial inspiration. It sounds obvious, but it’s really difficult not to let certain things slide – you might compromise just slightly on the feeling of a guitar sound for instance, and it might seem that it doesn’t matter, but it can actually fatally skew the integrity of the whole thing. In other words, I’ve had to do a lot of twiddling and tweaking before I can actually sit down and play.