My melodica made it out of the case for the first time in a while to rehearse for this Friday’s gig with Alasdair Roberts and Olivia Chaney. In amongst the ballads and Ali’s songs we’ll sneak in a couple of bits of Purcell’s Revenge too.  Then Alasdair and I are playing Brighton the following night.

Before that I’ll be revisiting the box of Jimmy Shand’s music books that the Wighton Collection bought at auction a few weeks ago: the very quick look through them that Karen McAulay and I managed a couple of weeks ago uncovered a Schetky piano piece I hadn’t known about, as well as lots of fiddle-related gems.

Speaking of artefacts from treasured cultural icons, when I was at Calum Malcolm’s place mixing the Tobias Hume, he let me have a listen to the Prefab Sprout album that he helped coax from the hermitage of Paddy McAloon. It’s very very good: out on October 7. Working with Calum is always a civilised pleasure - being picked up from the station in a 1964 Porsche that smells suspiciously of petrol sets the tone for the day well – and the Hume is sounding really fantastic. I’m excited to get it released, but first, notes, design, documentation … and starting work on the Purcell. I’d hoped to get both records edited by the end of the summer but I’m still hopelessly unrealistic about how long any job will really take.