One whiff of sunshine and I feel compelled to get my Undertones records out and give the neighbours a treat. No complaints yet, but I do live in a tiny village full of old people so there is always the possibility that they’ve all switched their hearing aids off and don’t know I’m here.

I’m currently in the middle of mixing the tracks for my new album. Three down, six to go. I usually like to mix at night but I’m experimenting with working during the day at the moment to see how it influences the music. The only real difference I’ve noticed is that everything is taking longer, mainly because I keep going out and sitting on a rug in the garden and making squeaky noises at Marjorie, our cat.

 I suddenly realised a few weeks back that its been three years since I finished Blumenkraft - doesn’t seem that long at all - and that its about time I got this one pulled together. Its strange because at the time I wrote the tracks for Blumenkraft, they weren’t part of an album or anything; they were just experimental pieces that I never imagined would be released.

 Its different this time because I am consciously building an album and thinking about things like “flow” and “pace” and picturing how the tracks will sound next to each other. That and the fact that I had 20 years to make Blumenkraft and only three years to make this one.

“Only” three years..! Heh…

 Anyway - it’ll be ready when its ready. Simon H at Twisted has been doing his nut trying to get me to send him some “work in progress” but I’ve told him he can’t hear it until it’s completely finished. I’m aiming for an album that holds itself together and stands up as a complete 70-minute work as well as a collection of seperate tracks.

I do have something of a deadline in that I want to have it all finished way before TWSBABY003 is released. Me and Zoe are expecting our first child in October and I need to get all the mixing and editing wrapped up before I disappear beneath a mountain of knitted boots and shit-soaked nappies.

 I’ll be easy to recognise at festivals next year. I’ll be the one with bags under my eyes and a stream of milky vomit down my back.