Practiced with Jon B and Emily last night - no Mark, so we ran through the set that we'd played at the last Folk House gig as a refresher, then worked on some other bits and pieces and I played them a couple of new things:

'Flowers' - as mentioned by Mark in his last entry - I'm battling with the lyrics/vocal melody for that at the moment. The structure is pretty much sorted. And also this little Red House Painters-ish thing I wrote in a couple of minutes in front of the telly one night and had to record on the spot before I forgot it. It hasn't got a working title yet.

Whole practice was great - we came up with some lovely new backing vocals for The 50s and remembered a flute part that we'd been working on before Mark's knee splatter last year. I'm really looking forward to getting everyone in the same room again - we've got PA sorted for Mark's rehearsal space so nothing can stop us. Nothing, I tell you! Ahahahaha!

I love new toys and my latest box is a Digitech Digiverb. So I'm trying desperately not to drench absolutely everything in vast amounts of reverb, but it's sooooooo tempting. The instrumental bits in Maladie sound amazing with too much reverb. I'll just have to learn restraint. Bah.

Have been listening to Cocorosie - really enjoying that, some simple ideas that I find profoundly moving. Also been listening to some of Janacek's solo piano music - 'On An Overgrown Path', 'In The Mists' and the Sonata 1. X. 1905. I love Janacek's musical language - I connect with it unusually well.