A Summer of travels, concerts ...

I finished a score for Randal Sharp's film "Henry May Long" - flew the band north, recorded the score in six hours, and put them back on the plane - Scary.

Camping with the children - fires on the beach at midnight and burnt bacon.

The new album is done and delivered. Mandy, now at electric mastering, cut it for me - her new studio is about 6 inches away from the edge of the westway, so you see trucks going by really really fast and close - but you can't hear them. Very weird.

I'm starting on a couple of new film projects "Waltz with Bashir", which is an amazing animated Doc about the first Lebanon War, and "Hope" a fascinating and thoughtful film by Stanislaw Mucha and Krzysztof Piesciewicz.

Whats on the stereo? Looking at the heap of CDs by the sink in the kitchen today, I see...

Vashti Bunyan - Singles and Demos from 1969- 72
Schubert - String Quartets (melos)
Beethoven - Late String Quartets (Julliard Qtet Live)
Various - Mbira music (+Kevin Volan's piece)
Konono no.1

A friend in Israel sent me the first chapter of his novel - fascinating - the main character lives in the same street I lived in when I was living in Florence. What a tiny (fictional and non- fictional) world.

Also this Summer, production for the first EP from Glasgow post-rock contenders The Twilight Sad. Or maybe that should be The Twilight Loud?

Spring is happening at last - children back to school - one minus a tooth - requests for dinner this evening: jelly baby lasagne.

Reading Mark Danner in the NYRB. Also Paul Reps...

We took a trip out along the river - the forth rail bridge from below looks like an alien spaceship - very beautiful - partially wrapped for painting at present, like Christo is on a tea break?

Some gigs coming up:

April 28 - Triptych Festival - Edinburgh (with Alex Balanescu)
May 12 - Fuse Festival - Leeds (new Jarman project)
May 25 - Brighton Festival (The Blue Notebooks complete)
May 26 - Le Weekend - Stirling (Jarman)
August 4 - The Big Chill

Looking forward to these.

The new record is well along - can't tell what its like yet.

There is a now a myspace site

http://www.myspace.com/maxrichtermusic

I've just completed a score for Ed Coulthard's beautiful BBC film "Soundproof".

Many travels...concerts at The Barbican in London with Vashti and at the Open Circuit festival in Belgium.

It snowed today - and hailed - we have been sledging. The children made clay hedgehogs, platypuses (platypae?), mushrooms, penguins...

I've been reading Marcus de Sautoy's wonderful book "The Music Of The Primes" on number theory. Also Philip Sydney, and David Shrigley.

Two new film projects:

"The Art Of Mirrors", to accompany some (unseen) Super8mm films by Derek Jarman - haunting.

"Hope" by Stanislaw Mucha, for later in the year. This is the first of three new scripts by Krzysztof Piesiewicz, writer of, among other things, Kieslowsky's "Three Colours" trilogy, and the "Decalogue".

Recent listening/reading

Gesualdo - Madrigals
Paris Motel - EP and Demos
Kurt Vonnegut - A man without a country
Sufjan Stevens - illinois
Broadcast - Tender Buttons
Delius - Brigg Fair

Meanwhile...I've started on the new record - writing and recording when possible - looking forward to getting this finished.

There is now a myspace site...

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=59563472

I'm busy with a film score project - about the final journey of Donald Crowhurst - sailing round in circles in the South Atlantic while pretending to sail round the world singlehanded, recording as he went. I have all his tapes and 16mm films on my computer...

The other day, down by the water of Leith, we saw a kingfisher.

Concerts in Dusseldorf (solo) and Brussels (trio) - played some records before the set - people have been asking, so the playlist is...

Bach - Prelude from G major Suite for Cello (Casals recorded in 1930!)
Boards of Canada - track 1 from In a beautiful place in the country
Rachel's - Last things Last
Arvo Part - Spiegel im Spiegel
Hope Sandoval - Butterfly Morning
Boards of Canada - Over the horizon Radar
33.3 - Powercut at the united nations
Damon and Naomi - While my guitar gently weeps
Mice parade - track 4?5? from Obrigao Saudade (the one with the dulcimer)
Cat Power - evolution
Boards of Canada - track 4 from In a beautiful place in the country.

Featuring lots of BoC in honour of their new album, which everyone must buy.

Started work on the new record - recordings with Robert Wyatt, at his house, far away...

We played a concert in Nottingham - Matt Hulse has made a beautiful Super8mm film for the entire blue notebooks. Alex Balanescu played a new violin pice of mine too.

Vashti Bunyan's second album, which I have produced, is ready. We've been working on it for the last 9 months or so, at my house and at various studios (Cava, SoundCafe, Eastcote).

It has turned out really well - Vashti is great.

A cast of thousands - Joanna Newsom, Devendra Banhardt, Otto Hauser from Espers, Kevin Barker, Adam Pierce all played.

Adem brought an Autoharp and a Harmonium painted red, with golden tubes sticking out the top...

Robert Kirby - arranger of Nick Drake's work, popped in to play the horn for us...

We borrowed my ensemble for strings - straight to 16 track/2 inch via the old MCI desk at Eastcote Studios.

The endless Summer is here - to Traqhuair Fair with the children - they had their first ever candyfloss, and chased through the maze.

Next up - a film score.

Recent listenings...

Stereolab: transient noise bursts with announcements
Bach: French Suites (Christoph Rousset - Harpsichord)
Rothko: In the pulse of an artery
Bill Laswell: Panthalassa
Brad Mehldau: Art of the trio 4
Outkast: Stankonia
Xenakis: Jonchaies etc.
Songs of green pheasant: ?

re-reading Perec, Borges, Pessoa, Sebald

I just finished a collaborative installation project for the Brighton Festval, UNDERGROUND. The piece inhabits the empty shell of the Theatre Royal and is based on Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment - twenty rooms full of sounds, films, scenery, figures, empty spaces...

We have found that a bus goes from our house direct to the beach - perfect.

Reading Catherine Lupton's book on Chris Marker.

On the radio the other day - Bach Double Violin concerto with Menhuin and Enescu playing, recorded in Paris in 1940. Astounding. I burnt the pasta...

Moodyssohn's "Together" - again.

Coffee and bagels made, and the computer whirring away, ready to continue the mix of a song of Vashti's...but I'm sitting here in the sunshine instead...

I've been playing Chopin, Mazurkas - tiny masterpeieces - must get the piano tuned.

The contact page has been repaired - apologies to all those people who have been trying to get in touch. If you haven't had a reply, that means I haven't received your mail...

The contact link is delivering blank emails to me at the moment, so if you have mailed me in the last ten days or so, I won't have received your message, even though it says I did...

I'll post a message here when it's working again.

Easter eggs.

Also...

Walter Benjamin - Reflections
W.G. Sebald - Campo Santo
Charles Rosen - Piano Notes
Ryokan - Poetry
Don Patterson - The book of shadows

I'm making a film without pictures for a performance at the end of the month. This will play at the Filmhouse in Edinburgh on 24th. Also work by the Brothers Quay, etc...

Two LPs arrived this morning, by Music AM. Looking forward to hearing them. Digital radio sounds worse than MP3s, which sound worse than CDs, which sound worse than LPs. Progress.

Illy.

Tomorrow we start recording Vashti Bunyan's new album, 35 years after the first one was released. The songs are very strong. Vashti has a Martin Guitar, made in 1880, that came from California this year. I'm collecting wine glasses, to make a glass harmonica.

I have written new cadenzas for Mozart's Piano Concerto K.466, for a performance in London, by my friend Kirsteen.

Douglas Maxwell's beautiful new play - if destroyed true - and Talisker after.

I'm playing a concert, including some new things, in Nottingham on June 22. This will be with the full band, also Alex Balanescu.

Plum trees blossoming in the botanic gardens.

Lots of people have been asking where they can buy copies of memoryhouse. If you have problems finding it, please contact the distributors on the following address...

Ian Ashbridge

ian.ashbridge@wrasserecords.com