The final(-ish) mix of the album has been sent to the record company for scrutiny (and hopefully acceptance)!

It was a whole pile of work, and extremely satisfying. If Joseph Campbell (who said ‘Follow your bliss’ … and was also the myth consultant for Star Wars) is to be trusted, I was put on this planet to make music.

So now the album is out of my hands for a while, ready to take its first steps towards release into the wider world. There’s still quite a lot to do before release, but still, this is a serious milestone.

For the first time in ages I have a little time to reflect. My mind is not filled with thoughts about EQ, panning, levels, or ‘Hmmm, maybe I should try sticking the vocals through some guitar-amp software, modelling a practice amp from 1962, with a condenser mic positioned slightly off centre?’

One of the things I’ve been reflecting on is my journey as the producer of this album.

Although I had a great deal of creative input in the production of the first album, I was Spock (only less rational), whereas Holy McGrail was Captain Kirk (only less keen to beat up aliens). We talked and tried things out, deep into the night, night after night. I had the benefit of his experience and impressive array of musical references. Not to mention all the culty instruments, synthesisers, and gadgets scattered about his studio (’Yeah, let’s try the ebow on the baritone guitar stuck through the Orange stack’). Mostly he was at the mixing desk, while I sat around having ideas, or made the teas. I had someone to discuss and argue things out with. Someone had my back.

This time, partly through choice, but largely through circumstance, I was flying solo. I not only wrote and played the music (though I did pull in some fine musicians in the later stages), I recorded it, mixed it and made all the creative decisions too. The plus side of this approach is the complete freedom to do things your own way, in your own time, and on your own terms. The danger with it is that you may well end up disappearing up your own arsehole.

It’s been a lonely, meandering and insecure time in some ways. It’s also been absolutely thrilling, like skiing off piste, backwards, with your eyes shut. I’ve been locked away, on my own journey, not really knowing where I’ll end up, or even how to get there. The only thing I’ve had confidence in is that the next thing I needed to do was to take another step in a particular direction.

I didn’t want to give early mixes to anyone to listen to. I’ve tried that in the past, and I’ve realised that, surprisingly, people can’t actually hear what’s in my head. They can only hear what I give them. Better, therefore, to wait until it’s all out of my head and in an audible format.

With this album, that point didn’t come until quite recently. I gave rough mixes to a couple of people who were playing on the album and to a couple of friends whose musical integrity I trust and who are painfully honest about what they think. (One of them was Holy McGrail).

Fortunately, the points people flagged up were largely points that still existed in my head and hadn’t made it into sound yet. Spooky, but reassuring.

And only VERY recently (like within the last week or so) have I given a fairly polished mix out to a wider focus group of vibrational consultants. So far, the vibe has been dug. Phew!

It’s a bit of a departure from the first album, with more of a full band sound (drums too!) and the mellotron doesn’t make an appearance even once.

But it is still based around me and my acoustic guitar (apart from one track which is based around the sound a new set of strings make before you’ve tuned them up, and the first part of a speech on climate change by Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela). As I’ve mentioned before, all of the songs deal with themes that have become important to (hopefully not just) me over the last few years: sustainability, climate change, reconnection with nature, and life in the wild. There are a couple of angry political songs, but nothing that would cause Public Enemy or Rage Against the Machine to raise an eyebrow. I have tried to steer a course between anger on the one hand and hope on the other.

I hope to have a new track for you to listen to online soon.