I haven't been feeling my best recently.

I've been working so much and my belly is giving me grief again. I've been a very busy boy doing things I love and things I feel to be of value and importance, but I'm still feeling pretty blue. It was both my parent's birthdays recently and for some reason that always give me cause for reflection. I don't know why but it leads to big questions. It also, almost always, leads to songs.

I recorded some more songs with my friend John Lindsay recently. We did it in his parent's house in Luncarty this time, as opposed to in our flat. It was a pretty bleak day outside and we both seemed to be in reflective moods. This would be the last time we'd record together, for a while at least, as John is heading to Vancouver to further his audio engineering studies. It was also the day that he had to giveaway his pet degus, so it was also kind of sad. They are going to a good home though as the lady who runs the shelter is more than well-prepared. The place was very impressive can house somewhere in the region of 300 animals at any one time. I can't remember the name though, but it's on John's Hill Road in Alyth.

I think the songs we recorded are probably the most quiet and introspective recordings I've ever done. When I'm playing by myself at home, I do a lot of finger-picking and quiet guitar stuff, but I've never really recorded or performed any of the songs that I've written that way. I think the fact that I've spent the past eight years or so going on first at punk shows was conditioned me to the fact that some punks only respond to one style, maybe it's just force of habit. That and the fact I'm a goon, I suppose.

Anyways, we drank coffee and spent about four hours in total doing stuff, from setting up our little set-up (guitar and mic into mixer into laptop) to drinking black coffee to recording to buying Brewdog. In the two sessions we've done together, we've nailed 8 songs in 8 hours, even though there are two different versions of the same song. I'm pretty pleased with that and I like the songs. I suppose that's quite a good start.

'Break-Ups (Demos II)' features two brand-spanking new songs, the first recording of an old song (although I'm convinced there's an old Burst four-track demo somewhere, but I'm not sure we did it) and an alternative version of 'Tall Tales'. I can't know which one I prefer, but I'll probably play the noisy one when faced with obnoxious punx!

Godspeed youth.

You can listen to and download my new demos for free at http://www.tragicalhistorytour.bandcamp.com/