Always my worst trait this is. And today I am experiencing it in spades. I just want things to work. My head, my computers, my car. I'm not particularly attached to the latest of everything or a fan of style over substance. I need the basic tools of my life to function with the minimum of maintenance.

Today I have spent £75 to find out that my car is basically beyond repair (or will cost me the better part of two and half grand) due to one small component breaking. I have further been told that it will cost me an additional £100 to scrap it (despite there being plenty of workable spares, bodywork and electrics which I'm sure will be stripped and sold).

I have also been struggling with Native Instruments and their arcane copy protection mechanism which means that I *still* cannot use the £500 worth of software I bought from them. This one is particularly gutting because I know full well I can acquire and install cracked versions in about 5 mins should I wish. Over the last year or so I have spent nearly 3 grand in building a legitimate, legal studio environment and have finally invested in a new studio ready computer (the first PC I have not built myself in 10 years). Now absolutely nothing seems to work. I don't see the point in putting in such a complex and unreliable activation method when there is nothing they can code that can't be hacked by a determined release group. This has been proven time and time again by the likes of H2O and AiR. Legitimate users are being punished by these companies that we are spending an AWFUL lot of money with.

The new album is completely recorded now and ready to be mixed and produced and this is seriously holding me up, not to mention driving me to the edge in the frustration stakes...and given my general state of stress lately this is a seriously dangerous thing.

I feel a primal scream coming on...

AAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH.

In other news, I have been once again chided by mates for a lack of updates to this blog and this will be rectified. Let me start by wishing many congratulations to Digitonal's very own Josh Docherty and his lovely missus Kelly for getting engaged this week. Brings hope to us all it does ;op.

I can't actually believe how horrible this year has been. I just want to get everything wrapped up and fixed and get on with it.

Perhaps my most listened to piece of music at the moment is Pierre Guédron's setting of Si le parler et le silence, sung by Andreas Scholl. It's on a cd recording that he did of Dowland's A Musical Banquet. When I was a kid, my mum had a recording of this album done by Antony Rooley with Emma Kirkby and Michael Chance amongst others. I was a bit obsessed with it in fact, a track called Ah Dear Life in particular. Anyway, after I left home I tried to find this record for years, and it wasn't until the Andreas Scholl recording got released that I got to hear any of these pieces again.

Si le parler... for some reason particularly gets me. I don't know if it's the unusual harmonic figure and timing of the phrases, or just the beauty of the words, but it really grabs me and has been known to generate tears. My french isn't even strong enough to know what it really means, but it's beautiful:

Si le parler et le silence
nuit à notre heur également,
parlons donc, ma chère espérance,
du coeur et des yeux seulement;
Amour ce petit dieu volage
nous apprend ce muet langage.

Que le regard vole et revole,
messager des nos passions,
et serve au lieu de la parole
pour dire nos intentions.
Amour, etc,

Mais si quelque âme est offencée
de nous voir discourir des yeux,
nous parlérons de la pensée,
comme les anges dans les cieux.
Amour, etc.

Ainsi par un doux artifice
nous trompérons les courtisans,
et nous rirons de la malice
de mille fâcheux médisans,
qui n'en sauront pas d'avantage
ignorant, ce muet langage.

Anyway, so i'm messing around on iTunes, having been a late convert to Apple technology via the new iPod touch and iPhone, and I come across the original recording of the Musicall Banquet. I've literally been after it for over 10 years. God bless digital distribution, making rereleases a viable option again.

http://www.texasjim.com/NASApix/NASA%20pix.htm

I'm confused.

Strike that, delete, remove.

I had written a load of miserablist stuff just before I went to New York a couple of weeks ago but not published it cause it seemed mind-meltingly self-indulgent and, frankly, a load of old bollocks.

Truth is, despite the odd "down day" here and there, things have been a little easier lately. The studio has been buzzing with productivity, including a cracking new remix for one of my inspirations, Fragile State (and winner of best Big Chill set, 2005 for me)...I even managed to see my ex and be ok about it. I've also done two sets of storming acid house with Josh, as well as prep for the forthcoming Just Music Cafe night which I'm really looking forward to.

These good times have mostly been soundtracked by Yimino, who have a new album out for download and it's very, very good indeed. Doe is perhaps the best bit of electronica I've heard in time.

ok, so they bite Plaid more than Plaid themselves (so much so that I almost suspect that it *is* Plaid), but they do it very well indeed and it comes strongly recommended.

The stupidly talented Matt Farrow did a photoshoot with us at the weekend and almost helped me look unhideous. In the meantime, I'm still considering turning us into a Gorillaz-style virtual band. Here's my mate Leon's first draft of me:

hmmmmm....;op

hang my eyes up on a hook
swells the panic i can’t look
inside my own skin i fail to find myself again

a million faces look the same
and their replies evaporate
there’s no soul behind these eyes
if they can’t glue me back again
ghosts drop hints and whisper things
just blood and bone and bits of string

family portrait on the wall
quiet confusion circle this
i can feel my mother’s hand
but i can’t find her face to kiss
there’s no soul behind these eyes
if they can’t glue me back again
someone’s life inside a box
nothing here resets the clocks
ghosts drop hints and whisper things
just blood and bone and bits of string

Tunng, I love you. I really do. That's so beautiful it's haunting me this week. Right under my skin it is. Thank you guys.