"I've Seen The Future, Baby"

Hello gang!

Wow. So I haven't updated the blog in what seems like forever.

Here's a quick catch up. Sean and I have finished the recording and mixing of 11 new songs for my new album... Temposhark album 2!

We spent a few days at the end of last week tweaking everything and went to Andy Bradfield's studio in West London for a few days to give our feedback on his mixes and edit them to make them all sound perfect. 

It's got to that funny point at the end of an album when both Sean and I can hardly tell what we think anymore of the record as we've heard it so many times now! But fear not - we know it's great and that you're going to love it! But we can't work out what track order to choose yet... so I decided to get out of the UK for a few days and am currently enjoying a short break in the sun, well not exactly sun - some sun, some rain and mainly lots of chilly breeze! But it's been a big relief for me to get away from both London and the songs for a few days. :)

We had loads of meetings over the past couple of weeks with all kinds of cool music industry people; it's been great to hear people's thoughts, see their reactions as we play songs and find out which ones they think are singles, the strongest tracks and all that!

I also hung out with my long-term design collaborator Tom Lardner and artist Julie Verhoeven who are both hard at work coming up with ideas for the album art work... and I've been in discussions again with my mate Ben Charles Edwards who is a great new film-maker about possible videos ideas. We were originally going to make a video to a song 'Joy' from my last album but we ended up deciding to wait and to make a few for this new album instead... we already have some great ideas! Ben made a film recently which was screened on MySpace called The Town That Boars Me - it features the acting talents of some of his mates like Kelly Osborne, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Sadie Frost to name a few... it really caught my eye when I saw it at the Notting Hill Film Festival last year, so I'm excited to collaborate with Ben.

Anyway, I had better get back to my 'holiday'... :)

I'll write soon...

R.xx

"Fashion, Turn To The Left"

I met up with Tom today who is art directing the new album sleeve.

We had a long, animated chat which lasted a good hour or so, looking at some boards of images he'd put together for me, and working out what what we both want to do........ and the exciting news is that we're hoping to do the main photo shoot before the end of February. Cool!!!

It was really exciting to see how enthusiastic he is about the new songs... he's one of the only people who has heard any of the new songs so far! It was also an amazing feeling to realise that soon there will be a front cover, a finished product which will become the roof over these 11 new songs... it's exciting knowing the time will soon come when we're able to share all these tracks.

The mixes are all coming together now, it's sounding really sharp and fresh and thrilling to know we're almost there......................

Night night.
R.xxx