It’s a beautiful day in Crystal Palace. I’m listening to the excellent new Boards Of Canada record. In fact, like proper “Hi-Fidelity” freaks, Lee and I just went through and rated everything in detail to make sure that only the 4 and 5-star tracks made it on to our ever-growing Ambient playlist.

All of the Ramshackle Crow stuff just sounds like white noise to me now, so I’m taking a few days away from it before we head for mastering – here is a screenshot of some of the mix notes we cranked through last week (Leo was a total hero!) just to give you some idea of the number of things we had to tweak. You’ll probably go blind if you try and actually read them.

Ramshackle Crow Mix Notes

I’m looking forward to rehearsal on Wednesday, to play the songs stripped back in our three-piece lineup. We made the decision to stop using the computer and Ableton Live, and just play the songs organically. It’s a strange decision in many ways, as the character of the synths and drum machines is what makes the album special, but as Leo said last week when I told him this was the plan, the computers and machine side of things is really just a distraction… what this is really about is telling the stories.

It’s weird trying to decide what to do about physical product before trying to get this album signed to some publishing company or whatever. About 5 years ago there would have been no question – you run off some CDs with nice artwork and that’s that. But now? Well, CDs are dead in the water for many. But somehow I still feel vinyl is something of an indulgence, and pure digital is just not enough. I haven’t got an answer yet. We’ll run off about 100 limited edition numbered white label CDs for friends/family/early adopters and that will be that for now. I’m just going to build my own web shop for those, just ‘cos I can ;)

Of course there is the simple yet charming iOS app with all Matt Rudd’s gorgeous artwork, so we’re not totally without a “product”.

Watch this space for a fun way to get your name into the credits…