Slow-forward.

The cold bit me hard on my way to the studio.

There was plenty of work to do, but what needed doing was known, so it was very easy to put it off. It needed to be put off, in fact. We’d been slapping our foreheads against a government authorised plastic wall for months. The coffee was already brewing as I entered. The kitchen was thick with steam and bandmates.

We moved into the recording room and Ed and Trewin drank their coffee and chatted about bikes, I think. Maybe engines or something. I don’t entirely remember. I don’t altogether care about engines. I’m not one of the engine people. I can’t stand over an engine and enjoy it. I mean, not really enjoy it, like engine people do. Sometimes I think I’d like to, but then I remember that I don’t care at all. Is that clear? I don’t like engines. Am I getting through? Hello?

Seryn and I sat in silence until I put forward the idea, for no reason other than fun, of watching something I’d found the night before. I could feel the conversation winding down (like an engine), and felt very much that this slow (like an engine (which I don’t like)) start (like an engine) to the day should be maintained (like a loving relationship). 

"Do you want to see something awesome?" I said.

"Sure," they said

So, with the chilling wind howling outside, we sipped on steaming coffee in our grey, unlit recording room, and watched this video together in a singular, comfortable silence: 

That’s the voice of HAL, there. And a clear influence on many of our favourite things. It’s a cool little nugget, no? Very few engines—that’s what I like best about it.

So then we were ready to drop back into work. Sit, listen. Suggest. Maybe this here, maybe this there. Entire songs needed reworking, but nobody was rushing. There was rushing that had been done, and rushing that were yet do, but for some reason on this particular day nothing was urgent, nothing needed to be done in a panic, and the time in which to get everything worked out was plenty. Our transport was casual—unmotorised. This suited me, you could guess. Oh yes. Everything was soft. We rode the waves between projects. One beat didn’t work. We took a note. Some harmonies were too complex; too much for a person to do. Retract. Redact. Unwind the twisted thing. Slow it all down. No need to grind uphill, dear friends. No need for horsepower. Surf gravity. Make your mode of transport a stolen ASDA trolley.

This splendid day inspired a small offering, which I hope tells a story:

Nothing there was crisis,

and nothing there was war.

A deadline is a noble aim,

but ever nothing more.

Tim