9.00 am. Over the past week, I’ve been drawn to a very specific visual phenomenon that I recognise in the weave of amplifier fabric and the knotting of the studio carpet, and the ‘static’ of my own databending images:

I see in them, too, variously the surface of a well-worn shellac record, the white noise of an analogue TV screen, shimmering information, trillions of stars — more numerous than the grains of sand on all the beaches of the world.

9.30 am. On with this week’s lecture and into Late Monet, Whistler’s Nocturnes, Debussy’s Nocturne, and Japonisme.

1.40 pm. I made a snap decision to assemble Pedalboard IV — which I intend to use in the context of my practice sessions, chiefly. It will be equipped with an array of modulation efforts (neatly housed in the T C Electronic Nova System), wah-wah and volume pedals, drive, boost, and distortion pedals, and a midi controller. Very economic, if a little heavy. The build began:

2.00 pm. I continued with the lecture through the afternoon, punctuated by distracting walks to the studio to consider the construction of the new pedalboard. This will be a relatively straightforward assembly. By the close of the afternoon, I’d completed two thirds of the lecture.

7.30 pm. I took on the pedalboard like to a Christmas turkey waiting to be trussed. An inspired moment in betwixt cabling and Velcroing: sanding the surface of a 78-rpm record:

This is a trial process which, if successful, will be used to prepare a neutral background on which each of the trio of fragments comprising the My Heart is Broken in Three record will be glued and made playable again.