December 13th:

With my plans for a British currywurst franchise temporarily on hold, I've been doing some mixing and project assessment with The Butler and Stephen Bennett.

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The 'voiceloops' album is probably complete, but now comes the difficult part of selecting the parts of the tracks which hold up to repeated listening. Almost without exception, the pieces start fairly tentatively and pick up an interesting or emotive thread around the two minute mark. A spark that then drives the ensuing 20 minutes of, hopefully, inspired indulgence.

Certainly amongst the most original and challenging work I've done, whether it's quite up to public scrutiny I've yet to make my mind up on.

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My two Hugh Hopper collaborations have finally found a shape and a sonic space that works. Twisting, fevered pieces with a genuine sense of edge and surprise, along with the more experimental elements of Centrozoon, it's the closest I've got to the freewheeling intensity and invention of 'Wild Opera', for quite some time.

Whether they form the basis of an HH project, a collaborative one or something of my own, I still don't know. Regardless, it's a thrill to be involved in something fresh and intriguing that includes the legendary likes of HH, Elton Dean and John Marshall.

Inside the Machine at last.

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December 3rd:

This is the first posting that finds me on the wrong side of 40.

Pass the suicide pills, kids!

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Despite me suffering from a debilitating migraine and a grotesque facial rash that re-cast me as pop's most eligible Elephant Man lookalike, the Bowness/Chilvers Blues Explosion's support to Porcupine Tree went as well as we could have hoped.

Although we started at the unfashionably early time of 7.30pm, there were still around a thousand people in attendance, of which 300-400 seemed genuinely pleased to see us (the rest, of course, preferred us as a background to some, no doubt, interesting conversations!).

A reasonable performance and a warm reception from some of the fans (including the likes of John D and Diane, who'd travelled from North America), made for a memorable experience.

'Photographs In Black And White' was as good a version as we'd ever done and, for various reasons, 'Returning Jesus' and 'Things I Want To Tell You' were especially poignant to perform.

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November 26:

In between bouts at the studio with Mixmeister Modo and Markus, I've been wandering around the streets of central Hanover.

Everything's Christmas light pretty and incredibly relaxed. The old town, City Hall and mainline station are ornately attractive in a traditional German style and over the next couple of days, I'm looking forward to seeing Lord Chilvers future residence, the wonderfully named, Herrenhausen (roughly translated, The House Of Lords).

The staggering number of Currywurst stalls and restaurants begins to frighten me.

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The music's going well, but very slowly. Tracks such as 'To The Other' and 'Strange Survival', which have always suggested they could be both moving and sonically interesting, are finally realising their potential. If the finished album lives up to its promise, it should document significant developments from 'The Scent Of Crash And Burn' EP and prove the most emotionally complete work we've done to date.

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Tonight's Coupland backdrop is the underrated, and admittedly inconsistent, John Lennon album, 'Walls And Bridges'. '#9 Dream' floors me for the hundreth time.

November 24:

Along with Markus (in his furious Frank from 'Blue Velvet' mode), I arrive in Hanover for four days of mixing and recording for the new Centrozoon album.

We've agreed loosely on what's staying and what's going and at this point, have enough material to fill three very different albums.

The one we're currently working on contains the material which defiantly slips between the cracks of the more extreme and and the more accessible elements of what we do. For me, this consists of the majority of our best work together.

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After a meal in a mighty fine Deutsche Indian restaurant (also populated by fellow Brit Paul Weller and entourage), we return to the studio (known primarily for its links with Metal bone-crunchers, Helloween).

Sans fright-wig and make-up, I play out the rest of the evening in a distinctly un-Rawk fashion, reading Douglas Coupland's new novel (the exquisitely sad, 'Hey Nostradamus'), while listening to Bach's 'Goldberg Variations'.

It comes as no surprise that I'm not on the guest list for the forthcoming Bollock Brothers visit to the city.

November 23:

A joint Centrozoon performance with Einslive DJ , Klaus Fiehe, was probably the worst trio gig in memory.

Playing to a crowd more interested in talking, dancing, smoking and drinking than listening to music is always difficult.

We didn't go down or play particularly badly, but overall, it felt like we were constantly banging our collective head against a giant, inflexible bratwurst (a regular problem in Westphalia).

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Tonight's (very pleasant) lunatic came in the form of a 21 year old German man who was staring at my hair and profile intently, while repeatedly telling me how British I look (a cross between Ronan Keating and Alan Shearer, apparently!).

I wasn't sure whether to take it as a compliment or a damn hard kick in my extremely English bollocks.

As one, particularly nasty, German expression for the English is 'Island Apes' ('Inselaffen'), I opted for the latter.

November 20:

A pleasant and uneventful flight to the 'fake' Dusseldorf, Niederrhein.

A much more interesting time on the train to Stansted, however, where my former dealings with the elderly mentally and physically infirm came in very handy.

A confused woman with no stockings, no bags, a solitary five pound note and, it must be said, a slight whiff of men's toilets about her, boarded at Norwich. On the basis that she or her daughter would pay in full within the next fortnight, she managed to persuade the ticket collector to sell her a ticket to Peterborough (I hope you're keeping track of the English geography, here!).

As her story varied from seeing her son to seeing her daughter, I was pretty amazed it got so far, so at Ely I suggested the ticket collector ring around the hospitals and homes in Norwich to see if someone had flown over the cukoo's nest.

Inevitably, ward 12 at one of the local homes for the mentally ill was missing one of their finest.

I expect my public service award from the Queen very shortly.

October 21:

Amidst interminable bouts of singing 'Angel Of Berlin' and playing intensely competitive games of bar football (England 10 Germany 3, in case you're wondering), Centrozoon actually managed to perform as part of the 'Nine Teeth' art exhibition.

An underground 'art happening' that part resembled Andy Warhol's Factory in its 1960s heyday, while also evoking a run-down community centre in Halifax, the assembled audience comprised an odd mixture of Berlin trend-meisters (founder of the famous 'Love Parade', Dr Motte and ex-members of Einstürzende Neubauten), burnt-out drug casualties and an army of teenagers more interested in playing pool than sampling the multiple artistic delights on offer.

Filmed by a local cable company, the performance was a confident fusion of the power of Wednesday's Scheck-In gig and the experiments of the previous week's Martin Luther Church event, but was marred by a lifeless sound and a slightly cold and analytical atmosphere. We were after all, an exhibit amongst exhibits.

Unusual post-gig chats and a three in the morning walk around the Kreuzberg area of Berlin, added to the slightly surreal nature of the day.

'Ten versions of a dream.'

October 16th:

Wednesday's Centrozoon performance was polished and confident, but the emphasis on the more beat-orientated aspects of our work, made it a less charming and satisfying experience than usual for me.

Sunday's church setting provided an ideal atmosphere for relaxed excursions into the heart of the music, whereas the more conventional and organised nature of this performance meant that we were restricted in terms of where we could take the songs.

Despite this, we played well enough for the assembled cameras and people, and delivered acceptable versions of 'Bigger Space', 'Make Me Forget You' and 'The Me I Knew', as well as a bizarrely fiery rendition of the usually delicate 'Skylight'.

Next stop Berlin, and an attempt to fuse the best aspects of the last two gigs.

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Glen Cambell's 'Wichita Lineman' finally gave way to a temporary obsession with David McWilliams' 'The Days Of Pearly Spencer' and Procul Harum's 'A Salty Dog', as myself and die mensch-maschine prepared the backing tracks for the new Centrozoon opus.

Our journey to Hannover (via 'Minden the beautiful') was accompanied by a spontaneous re-appreciation of the Cure's back catalogue and innumerable traffic hold-ups (not just a British disease, as I found out).

The recording of 'Green Blood' went well enough and on being told that The Scorpions had regularly recorded in the studio, saw Markus transformed into a Hard Rock hero a la Michael Schenker, and his trusty Warr Guitar mysteriously take on the shape of the classic flying-v.

Given his recent interest in Grave Digger, I could only conclude that Centrozoon, 'The Metal Years' is an imminent prospect.

October 14th:

Designed as a means of linking the disparate sites containing information about the various musical projects I'm involved with, another addition to the senseless clutter along the information highway comes in the form of the brand new www.timbowness.com.

An intentionally simple Flash Media free zone, there'll be no pop-up menus, audio samples, or images of me with a lizard tongue intermittently emerging from my all-singing mouth.

A pity, really.

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The recording of Sunday evening's 'ambient' Church performance turned out as well as we'd hoped.

So much so that by the end of the week, there should be an edited version available for free download from www.centrozoon.de.

An effective balance of the composed and the improvised, as always it was the unplanned sections which provided the bulk of the highlights as well as most of the moments I'd rather forget.

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My Summer duets with Italian singer Alice were finally released on October 9th as part of her new album 'Viaggio In Italia'.

As I've not yet heard the album, I can't say for sure whether our versions of King Crimson's 'Islands' and Syd Barrett's 'Golden Hair' are more Rene And Renatto, or Nick Cave with PJ Harvey.

The album reached number 24 on the Italian charts. Book my place on 'Hitparade' now!

October 12th:

It's Sunday night in Gütersloh and it's freezing. The only refuge from the harsh elements is that high water mark of German culture, Köchlöffel.

Two coffees later, served by a visibly shocked waitress who obviously equates my faltering Deutsche-English with incomprehensible alien, I'm on 'stage' with Centrozoon performing at the Martin Luther Church.

Refraining from defiling the pulpit and the magnificent resident organ, we play a soothing 'ambient' version of the Centrozoon set to the 50 or so troubled souls who've bothered to check out the bizarre sounds emanating from their regular place of worship. Evensong this isn't.

Comprising three existing tunes and three improvisations, the performance is mostly good, and barring a few technical difficulties, sounds excellent throughout.

New piece 'Skylight' receives its first outing and is surprisingly strong, as is the improvisation which follows a strangely muted version of 'Make Me Forget You' from 'The Scent Of Crash And Burn' EP.

A nice break from the usually loud and intense Centrozoon performances, the ornate interior of the church provides a wonderful backdrop to an emotive and focused performance.

In two days, we play again in Gütersloh (this time filmed) and at the weekend we travel to Berlin, where we perform as part of an arts festival.

September 29th:

Typically ironically, in the week in which I was going to discontinue the diaries and erase all my past entries, I wrote more than I usually do.

Whether in terms of art or material comfort, for me, periods of accumulation are always followed by periods of ridding myself of ideas and objects. This leads to a constant state of finding, forgetting and reassessing what I like and what I think is important, and, by association, a stronger sense of why I do what I do.. As the pile of books and clothes in the bags bound for Oxfam suggest, the current period is definitely one of letting go.

September 25th:

Cold steel, concrete and stink. Ah, London!

Courtesy of the nice Mr Jansen and Ms Zornes, I go to the Royal Festival Hall to see David Sylvian and Steve Jansen perform.

Before the gig, myself and the Lord chat merrily over tea and cakes with Richard and Suzanne Barbieri. Along with the No-Man reissues, One Little Indian are also keen to see the reappearance of 'Flame', an album I recorded with Richard in 1994 which hasn't been around since.

Myself and Richard discuss some ideas related to the reissue as I reflect that 2004 now looks certain to be the year of the constant repeat for me.

'Groundhog Day' for the terminally depressed.

The gig is probably the best I've seen of DS since his 1988 tour (which featured the powerhouse improv duo of David Torn and Mark Isham creating an ever-shifting backdrop to the songs). Mostly comprising the stark, textural experiments of 'Blemish' and some unreleased pieces, the bulk of the show is a 21st Century distillation of what's been good about Sylvian's work since the atmospheric splendour of 'Ghosts'. The set finale, a new song featuring a sample from Arvo Part, is a particular highlight.

For me, the low points of the set are the mundane and loungey acoustic re-interpretations of some of his classic Japan and solo work, with my least favourite moment being a slightly turgid 'Jean The Birdman'.

Somehow it felt, quite rightly, that the enthusiasm was all wrapped up in the new work, with the majority of the gig pointing to a bright re-birth of Sylvian and Jansen's creativity and the potential for some great future sounds.

A post-gig chat with 'the prince of posh', 'the sons of Sheffield' and Mr Jackson and his lovely wife and I'm East Anglia bound once more.

September 24th:

With the potential legal problems now out of the way, we've received confirmation that No-Man's early albums will be reissued by One Little Indian in the Spring of 2004.

The last fortnight's strongly worded emails and threatening phone calls have given way to something more constructive and plans are finally underway to make the ideas a reality.

This, along with finalising the vinyl issue of 'Together We're Stranger' and launching more archive titles on Burning Shed has temporarily taken the place of actually making some music, and as a result, I'm feeling pretty restless.

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With the diaries, it's often difficult to know how much detail to go into.

Unlike the excellent, idiosyncratic and highly readable Roy Harper sleeve notes, I've always avoided any mentions of my personal life, partly to protect the privacy of those close to me and partly to keep something of myself secret, although as Harper's musings eloquently testify, the personal and the psychological make-up of the artist is frequently the trigger for the art.

Robert Fripp's diaries on the other hand, have always fearlessly sought to expose the corruption and 'industry' that surrounds the creation of such an essentially abstract and magical thing as music. His is a more detailed and dry analysis of the mechanism of the music business and the tedium of the processes that lead to 'the moment'.

As somebody already involved in the mundane, day to day frustrations of what serves as a backdrop to creativity, it's hard to know whether this information in some way tarnishes the enjoyment of the average listener, or whether it serves to make 'the moment' even more special.

For me, in a creative sense, I've always been 'living on the edge of my nerves' and always been capable of summoning something out of nothing.

Regardless of the details of production or the contracts that bind the product, there's a side of me that still needs the frequent release of expression through music. When that stops being the case, hopefully that's also when I bow out gracefully and take up undertaking for a living.

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'every time you try to speak, more life gets in the way'

September 22nd:

Listening through to the master of the vinyl version of No-Man's 'Together We're Stranger', I become suddenly paranoid that I may never be able to do something quite so emotionally and musically complete again.

In many ways this was an album that came effortlessly to us, but only as a result of a series of inexpressibly hard and unique personal experiences.

Whether circumstances will ever conspire for me to make a similarly intense and resonant statement, I'm not sure, but as always, I'll endeavour to keep on keeping on.

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Sessions for a solo voice album have begun with Andy Butler.

Creating layers of looped voices and playing with the possibilities of rhythm and harmony both within improvised and pre-composed settings, the idea is to create a project comprised of the voice, the whole voice and nothing but the voice.

Although I've been doing something similar within the context of Darkroom, I was keen to see what the voice was capable of doing as an instrument in its own right.

My original motivation was my memory of Robert Wyatt's experiments with the early Soft Machine and the distinctive contemporary choral work of Meredith Monk and Steve Reich, but from the off, the pieces started to develop a strong identity of their own.

The initial recordings, although marred by occasional technical hitches, proved inspiring and interesting enough to plan for some further sessions over the next few months.

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'we try to keep our dignity, we look for facts to set us free.
Just troubled souls who can't agree, made see-through.'

September 12th:

Seems like old times (parts 1 to 5):

The long, long journey into London, the crush and rush of the sweat-drenched underground and the familiar business discussed with familiar faces in all too familiar spaces. Not to mention the expectedly obscene bulge in our bags as myself and Mr Wilson left for home with approximately twice our body weight in free CDs.

Like starving kids in the candy shop from Heaven, we greedily grabbed all we could carry. Echoes of the past mingled with essence of Willy Wonka's chocolate factory as a temporary madness took hold.

Charging through dimly lit towns and invisible countryside on the late-night train home, some things, I reflected, never change.

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Despite a last minute attempt to stop the meeting and the potential reissue programme by a rival company, the No-Man/One Little Indian face off was both pleasant and productive. Hopefully the mutual enthusiasm on display will result in reissues of 'Flowermouth' and 'Loveblows And Lovecries' that actually look as if some care and attention have been lavished on them.

As these are albums that we don't own, it's previously been difficult for us to totally dictate the way the albums have been issued and presented, but the deal under discussion will allow us complete artistic control to package and compile the albums as we'd like.

Beware, the metallic-blue sandpaper vinyl miniature of 'Flowermouth' awaits!

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'every day, a different colour in her eyes.'

September 5th:

"Fantastic idea! Let's sort it out over lunch next week. Can you pass the sugar, please?"

Meetings, meetings and more meetings.

This week has witnessed lots of talk about intriguing future possibilities over coffee and doughnuts, but little solid-gold easy action.

Making the effort to get external commitment and support to actualise plans can be time-consuming, emotionally draining and very, very frustrating. Not to mention, a constant threat to an already bulging waistline. Never quite work and never quite play, the business lunch is an uneasy hybrid of the two and infinitely less satisfying than either. Unless someone else is footing the bill, of course.

On the plus side, Burning Shed is a fortnight away from issuing some interesting new and archive releases, and some potentially exciting gigs in Germany and the UK are currently in the process of being arranged.

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Next week, myself and the man Wilson make our way to One Little Indian's HQ for the first time in nearly a decade, with a view to co-ordinate the label's proposed reissue programme of No-Man's early work and compare what ten years can do to male hairlines.

As the reissues were something that we were approached over, rather than having initiated ourselves, the signs are promising. If successful, the result will be that the material from the 'Lovesighs' and 'Loveblows And Lovecries' eras will be resurrected and repackaged and that 'Flowermouth' will be served better than Third Stone's recent cheap looking reissue of the album.

As with the period that led to the release of 'Speak', this reassessment of No-Man's past will inevitably pose questions about the band's present and future directions.

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Musically, I've been pledging allegiance to the funk and, in a very English approximation of disco dancing, raising my eyebrows in time to the beats of Funkadelic's 'One Nation Under A Groove' and Talking Heads' masterful 'Remain In Light' and underrated 'Naked'. James Joyce's 'Dubliners' has provided the literary foreground, while 'Max' has been the best celluloid experience since 'Solaris' and The Hours'.

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'I dream of changes. I change my dreams.'

September 1st:

Stephen Bennett's video for No-Man's 'Things I Want To Tell You' is, in accord with the mood of the track, haunting, evocative and lovingly lingering and slow. Given our mixed and frequently embarrassing history with film, it's possibly the best video the band has ever had. Bizarrely, it's also perilously close to the dividing line between art and soft-core porn.

The idea of No-Man achieving 'below the counter' notoriety is a strange one, but, assisted by BennettVision, now seems wholly possible. Back-street shops around the world will resonate with the request, "I'd like Jurassic Pork 5 and, ahem, Things I Want To Tell You."

Myself and the man Wilson are still determined to decline the Playgirl centrefold, though.

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A weekend of catch-up and industry queries, and a series of discussions with Lord 'swan, quail eggs and brie for breakfast' Chilvers on how to take Burning Shed forward.

As well as an assessment of ongoing work with Centrozoon and Italy's Fjieri Group, the weekend's soundtrack included Nitin Sawhney's 'Prophesy', The Korgis' 'Don't Look Back', Gene Clark's 'No Other' and King Crimson's 'Thrak'.

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'Everybody else, they're just fooling themselves. Not you.'

August 29th:

My first day back in the land of the lager louts started appropriately enough with a highly competitive indoor soccer game at the UEA.

Despite the potentially lethal combination of having had no exercise for three weeks and being subject to the Reuter Diet (like the Atkins Diet in reverse), my concentration was good and my team won. Cue delirious fanfare.

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The German experience was positive and energising and, so far, I'd say I'm making out pretty well on my Ezra Pound-esque quest to 'make it new' and do things differently.

The new songs and new arrangements of old songs have a strong focus and at this stage would definitely appear more album bound than egg bound.

'Girl Of The Week' has made the miraculous transition from tribal psychedelic Ambient epic to succinct disco rave-up. Modjo and Chic beware!

Of the new songs, 'The Death Of Disco Dottie' has a brooding menace which makes it seem something of a better dressed second cousin of No-Man's 'Wild Opera' album, while 'Skylight' is an intensely spiritual tone poem. Based on a lovely Bernhard synth/gamelan synth sequence, my first take vocal and Markus' loop additions make this amongst the strongest work we've done together.

The new mixes of the older Centrozoon material by Lee Fletcher and Derek DiFilippo are also very encouraging, especially Lee's creation of a series of Industrial Ambient miniatures edited from our long improv sessions.

As I've suggested on other occasions, with the right balance of material, the album could be something special.

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24th August:

"So, you're a singer?"

"Yes, I sing."

"What do you do?"

"I sing."

"You play for me on Saturday?"

"I'll be back in England by then."

"England? No, you play for me on Saturday!"

Being propositioned by a drunken German Princess can be hard work.

After my singing one line of 'Ten Versions Of America' into her regal ear, The denim-clad, chocolate bearing aristocrat Catharina Prinzessin zu Schaumburg-Lippe has demanded that Centrozoon play for her next Saturday and her aides are determined to make sure that it will happen. I have an intimate chat with a lovely harpist, while Markus tries to bed Catharina's assistant and Bernhard negotiates our fee. I remain very sceptical, but who knows, by next week we could be frightening the frocks off some Deutsche aristocracy.

Perhaps even more bizarre than the absurd contrivances of the mighty Leprechaun 4 - Leprechaun In Space was the setting for Centrozoon's experience at the annual festival celebrating the work of German artist Simone Beckman (www.simonebeckman.de).

Somewhere in the heart of Northern Germany amidst lurid neon paintings, laser projections, drunken princesses and hundreds of revellers getting their thrills from a sensual overload of art, cheese, avant-garde performance and music, our second date of the week took place.

Tighter than Thursday's gig, the trio performed well in what was effectively an open-air festival setting. More accessible in tone, the band has developed a more controlled approach to the music and heightened the dynamic range and definition within the songs. 'Bigger Space', Make Me Forget You' and 'The Me I Knew' remain the emotional highspots for me.

For the rest of the week, we'll be recording new material and re-recording some old material in the style of the recent live performances.

22nd August:

From station to station to Dusseldorf City, but unlike Kraftwerk, instead of meeting up with Iggy Pop and David Bowie, I was confronted by the imposing forms of enigmatic Man-Machine, Markus Reuter, and the walking Kilimanjaro, Bernhard Wöestheinrich.

A day after arriving in Deutschland and one two hour rehearsal later, Centrozoon are playing at a packed wine bar/restaurant as part of a 'chilled beats' accompaniment to excessive food and drink consumption.

We provide plenty of beats, but as for the chilled part of the evening's billing, I'm not sure. Part sensual balladry and part teutonic groove, we also offer a couple of pieces that would scare the crap out of good ol' Captain Beefheart himself.

Given the fact that we've not played together for over a year, the day's music is surprisingly strong and coherent, with us even managing radical overhaul of two of our songs (including a rapid-fire, pure disco reading of 'Girl Of The Week'). 'Bigger Space' finally comes into its own as a live piece and 'Make Me Forget You' is as sweet as I remember it to be.

The audience response is good and throughout the set we have an eight year old boy running and jumping at the front of the stage shouting, "Deutshche, Deutsche!" As he showed no obvious signs of Hitler Youth affiliation, I felt I could breathe freely.

Despite the instinctive and prolific nature of our collaboration, the Centrozoon album continues to come together slowly. The problem lies with the eclecticism of the material. Varying from the most commercial work I've done since early No-Man to pieces guaranteed to offend the tastes of any right-thinking individual, the search for the right mixes, edits and structure is especially important in this case.

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The romantic sojourn to Ireland proved as pleasant and inconclusive as ever, but at least sowed the seeds of some future musical (dis)content (N.B. Not in the 'Riverdance' vein!).

The two tunes I currently can't get out of my head are the wildly differing 'The Vigil' by Jane Siberry and 'Soup For One' by Chic. 'The Vigil' is an ambitious and evocative extended tone poem on the consciousness as its lets go of life and slips into death (I think), while the insistent grooves of 'Soup For One' tell a story of 'when you're on your own in your empty home' (damn, I think I'm going to cry!). Woolf's 'The Waves' continues to irritate and inspire in equal measure.

August 5th:

A month and a half of diary silence.

Probably a good thing, of course.

July found me in Milan recording a couple of croon-centric duets with well-known Italian singer Alice. With temperatures in the nineties, we were well advised to stay in the glorious and gloriously air-conditioned studio.

A city of dynamic aesthetic contrasts, Milan was simultaneously ostentatiously beautiful and crudely commercialised. Accordingly, I played both idiotic tourist and urban warrior to perfection. Throwing up adventures including an impromptu midnight massage (strictly legal!) and me being the lifeline for several distraught American couples in search of someone (anyone) to talk to, hopefully this visit won't be my last.

Both by accident and design, I spent time re-establishing many old contacts (professional and personal). As a consequence, an interesting offer relating to the reissue of No-Man's early albums has arisen. This will hopefully mean a thorough reissue programme of the band's early albums, containing extra tracks, sleeve notes and additional artwork.

Affording me an opportunity to reassess the work, I was pleased at both how much of it I still liked and how much the band has changed in the last decade and a half.

The fanbase response to Together We're Stranger has been extremely mixed, with half believing it to be our most artistically successful and emotive album and half wishing for us to return to a more accessible beat-driven music. From my perspective, No-Man's music is continually in the process of changing and it's still something that means a great deal to me. As long as that remains the case, I'm happy with wherever we end up and whatever we end up doing.

One thing is certain, however, and that's the fact that I currently feel a need to create a slightly more confrontational type of music in opposition to most of what I've been writing and recording in the last four years. The last time I felt this way was just after the recording of the Flowermouth and Flame albums in 1994. This is known as my Miles-influenced 'I love the ballads, so I can't play the ballads' phase. Of course, I may have completely changed my mind by tomorrow and decided to form a Carpenters tribute band instead.

Over the next few weeks, I'll be in Dublin and Galway (in tourist and jaded lover-man guise) and in Germany, recording and gigging with Centrozoon.

Diary silence will descend again.

June 22nd:

My being mercilessly attacked by a four foot cubed lesbian and the Lord causing a liquid sensation in my favourite curry house aside, it's been a month and a half of preparations for indefinite somethings as opposed to actually concluding that much. The lack of diary entries has consequently been a tense combination of long time, no write, and long time, no real desire to write.

A Bowness/Chilvers performance at The King Of Hearts along with Alias Grace and Andy Butler was certainly a highlight of the year. Performing stripped down grand piano and voice renditions of 'California, Norfolk' and No-Man material, beautiful venue, clear sound and attentive audience combined in an ideal way to provide a reminder of why I do some of what I do. Once more, 'Things I Want To Tell You' and 'Winter With You' possessed an emotional edge and controlled looseness that pointed at a new direction for the Bowness/Chilvers Hooligan Element.

I joined Darkroom for the first time in two years at the Looping Festival in Cambridge. On the same bill as the always excellent Theo Travis and Peter Chilvers (in electronic mode), and the endearingly peculiar Burning Shed novelty act Um, we pleasurably floated around in sound for half an hour and very effectively rediscovered the lost art of Darkroom.

The Rhinoceros album 'Tiny Ghosts' also finally appeared this month and, my guest contribution aside, it's a consistently strong and inventive offering that along with the more pastoral Marconi Union album 'Under Wires And Searchlights' suggests a neglected underground of quietly compelling albums following an interesting and unique post-Trip Hop direction.

This, along with a conversation I had with two highly articulate and musically literate No-Man fans (known only as London Sheffield and Tunbridge Wells Sheffield), leads me to think that the increasing distance between experimental and pop music is producing a generation of discreetly beautiful albums, in which artists are becoming more and more themselves, because they realise that in the world of Christina Aguilera and The Cheeky Girls that they're less and less commercially viable.

The avant-garde/pop crossover music that commercially thrived from the 1960s through to the mid 1990s (Laurie Anderson, Beatles, Underworld, Massive Attack, Beach Boys, Pink Floyd, Bowie, Roxy Music, Talking Heads, Peter Gabriel and many, many others) produced sounds that knowledgeably fused pop sensibility with genuine experimentation. The music sold and a creative middle ground seemed possible. The fragmentation and classification of popular music has meant that operating in-between genres leaves artists with nowhere to go. Metal, Dance, Retro Rock, Jazz, Pure Pop and Country all have their specific radio, TV and magazine outlets, but the truly interesting hybrid musics seem left in a wilderness.

It could be that the psychological impact of this knowledge that the Top 10 single appearance is no longer an option is subliminally affecting the nature of a lot of potential crossover music. For me, the last half decade has been about the generically unclassifiable and serene pleasures of Mark Hollis 'Mark Hollis', Bjork's 'Vespertine', Massive Attack's '100th Window', Sylvian's 'Blemish, Beth Gibbons/Rustin Man's 'Out Of Season' and Sigur Ros '()'. No-Man's last two albums and 'California, Norfolk' undoubtedly also fit into this 'quiet world' of contemporary textures and exposed emotions that exist on the fringes of everything and in the heart of nothing and, as such, are possibly less culturally isolated than they may seem. Hey, a movement!

May 7th:

Something's different. A light drizzle, a discarded Walkers crisp packet and an aroma of Saturday night from a fresh puddle of piss and vomit by the Ladbrokes doorway. My neck bristles with tension and my fists are at the ready. 'Welcome to Heathrow' the sign proudly proclaims. Mmmm, I must be back in Blighty.

Since returning from SARS Central, I've tried to concentrate hard on avoiding work of any kind, but unfortunately, No-Man promotion, Burning Shed catch-up, college and several email avalanches and phone marathons have kept me from sleeping my life away (another major ambition denied).

East Anglia's undergoing something of a mini-heatwave and after 10 days of confronting the vast size of downtown Toronto's skyscrapers, it's been refreshing to return to the quaint scale of English heritage buildings and the comforts of home and friends. Free of the walking food disposal unit Lord Chilvers, my diet is finally back to normal and I'm suddenly aware that I can see my feet and ribs again.

The No-Man album has had some excellent responses from both mainstream and fanzine press and Snapper are still proving to be an industrious and competent label (long may it continue). Along with preparations for an acoustic Bowness/Chilvers gig and a return to the electro-madness of Darkroom in June, along with SW, I've been discussing the prospect of the first No-Man dates for a decade. Without a pro-active agent, though, it could be very difficult to arrange. The interest is there, but fully accessing that interest via an enthusiastic promoter and SW finding time outside Porcupine Tree might get in the way of our intentions.

The two Toronto dates provided the posh prince and myself with an excellent opportunity to try out untested new and old material and expand the range of our repertoire. The four new No-Man songs and 'Winter With You' particularly worked well and suggested a more abstract, yet highly emotional aspect to our music. Breathing new life into the antique 'Flowermouth' track 'Watching Over Me' was also a highlight of the performances. I'd like to thank our North American fans who braved the threat of deadly virus and definitely made the trip worthwhile for us. Many thanks are also due to Diane and Joe for their hard work and organisation.

April 28th:

"Hello, I'm Karen and I'll be your cartwheeling waitress for the evening."

Two cartwheels and one coffee later, I'm inclined to believe her. "You're welcome," she utters for no particular reason.

Myself and Lord Peter are in an empty bar in Yorkville with Lawrence@50, Mr Begley and Diane. It's midnight and an appropriate end to what's already been dubbed Rene Magritte Monday.

Earlier in the evening, for a joke, the Bowness/Chilvers Blues Explosion signed up for an open mike spot at Gary 17's 'Acoustic Session' at the Blues On Bellair. At the soundcheck, I'm prevented from using the microphone by a stoned white afro-man's psychedelic dancing to Peter's tentative first steps on the huge in-house Hammond organ. Later, afro-man regales us and the SARS reduced audience of nine with a seemingly endless blues in search of a tune, called 'I's Going Down And I'm Dickin' Around'. Masturbation has rarely sounded so poetic an experience. The club's barkeep, an ex member of Toronto's semi-legendary Luke And The Apostles, gets his kicks by giving out free drinks, heckling the performers and occasionally rushing on stage to play a mean Hammond solo or six.

Unfortunately, Lord C's Hammond debut is mean in an altogether different way. Several Molson Canadians into the evening, Peter's rendition of 'Dreaming Of Babylon' sounds more like 'Verily, The Hammond Has Been Drinking, Not I'. Luckily, he quickly redeems himself and we do passable renditions of a few of our more introspective tunes to a largely comatose crowd. Reserved and highly English, we do much to enhance the surreal atmosphere of the near empty bar.

A weird luddite/tech-geek scenario presents itself as Gary 17 dressed as a cowboy and extolling the virtues of Shania Twain and good ol' country values, also comes with a state of the art headset and DJs with a laptop.

Another stoned would-be performer becomes fascinated with myself and Peter and tells us that Buddy Holly is God, many, many times over. A pretty girl from Calgary laughs at my every joke as if it's the funniest thing she's ever heard, and for a while I'm convinced that my delivery is better than Bob Hope's. Later, I realise that in her eyes, everybody's is.

Yesterday's leisurely stroll on the beautiful Toronto Islands seems a lifetime away.

April 23rd:

Three days in and the word rehearsing has become alien to the Lord and myself. The words 'food' and 'CDs', however, find us in a frenzy.

Peter takes to the staggering variety of restaurants on offer like a duck to water, or Homer Simpson at an 'all you can eat' buffet. A large bucket of mussels on the hour, every hour, keeps Lord C in the style to which he's rapidly becoming accustomed to.

As for the scourge of SARS, it's everywhere in the media and nowhere on the streets. No-one wears masks and no-one seems concerned. The comedy clubs and cinemas we've visited are full, the shops are active. Our gracious host Diane deliberately develops a hacking dry cough, but so far, Charlton Heston and his zombie pursuers are nowhere to be seen. I believe Styx may have had a good time.

A nice interview at the mighty CIUT with Feedback Monitor's Greg Clow.

April 22nd:

After a relaxed, romantic break in the surprisingly beautiful city of Brussels, it's a hectic afternoon at home followed by a gruelling 16 hours of travelling and waiting which eventually finds myself and Lord Peter in SARS Central, Toronto.

The Bowness/Chilvers Blues Explosion are all geared up to send some unsuspecting Canadians to sleep with their mesmeric blend of lullaby lilt and Ambient Shock Rock. Good timing, as ever. Styx and Elton John have cancelled, but not us!

The small number of guards and travellers at Pearson International suggests that everybody in Toronto is dead and that perhaps Elton John and The Omega Man got it right. Regardless, courtesy of my 'polite' Englishness, I narrowly avoid anal cavity search.

NB Never say 'musician' at an airport security check-out.

8th March:

Valentine's week appropriately saw myself and SW finally complete the new No-Man opus, 'Together We're Stranger'.

A week of passing sound files back and forth from London to Norwich (the true capital of the nation) resulted in the last minute inclusion of a song called 'Back When You Were Beautiful' which, while not necessarily the strongest piece on the album, gave the project as a whole a greater sense of cohesion and substance, as well as allowing Stephen Bennett and 'Lord' Peter 'prince of posh' Chilvers more opportunities to be part of the fun. Of course, when I say fun, I actually mean suicidal misery.

Talking of which, most of this month's cultural highlights for me have involved suicide in one way or another. 'Solaris', despite its seductive cosmic imagery, primarily deals with a man attempting to come to terms with the suicide of his wife. 'The Hours' brilliantly fuses fact and fiction and contemplates the nature of art and reality, in a tale of three disparate women. Containing not one but two suicides and a mediocre Phillip Glass soundtrack, it's worth seeing despite the Oscar nominations.

I also finally tracked down Richard Brautigan's posthumous novel, 'An Unfortunate Woman'. Dealing with Brautigan's avoidance of acknowledging the suicide of a friend, the novel's downbeat, poetic tone is closer to Raymond Carver than the playful musings of previous work like 'Willard And His Bowling Trophies'. It was an especially poignant read given Brautigan's own suicide a year after he'd completed the novel. Shit, is someone telling me something!

On a lighter note, I enjoyed the creatively funny exploits of Charlie Kaufman's 'Adaptation' and PT Anderson's 'Punch-Drunk Love', which along with me rediscovering my enthusiasm for late 1960s 'Avengers' episodes, suggested that intelligent art needn't always be bleak. They also made me lament the fact that over a hundred years down the line cinema still seems to be finding innovative new means of expressing itself, while Pop/Rock (still under 50) seems in a slightly unambitious and unhealthy state at the moment.

Massive Attack's newbie turned out to be a masterpiece of atmospheric production with a minimum of tunes, but along with Mum's 'Finally We Are No-One' and Roy Ayers 'Anthology', it was the only thing I found myself wanting to play this month.

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My debut work with Centrozoon has just been completed. A surprisingly accessible, yet adventurous, five track affair, it shares very little in common with the direction that No-Man and Bowness/Chilvers have gone in, and is perhaps all the better for it.

With several No-Man interviews scheduled for the next few weeks and my ongoing Cultural Studies course, I may find some new ways to avoid filling this diary. Until I don't....

5th January:

After two weeks of shuffling around like Dickens' Scrooge as re-written by a mightily anxious Samuel Beckett, it's good to emerge blinking into the daylight of reality.

December proved interesting with the Burning Shed mini-festival being both a pleasure and a pain. The words never and again sprung to mind on at least a thousand occasions during the two day event.

The Friday event was over-ambitious, under-attended and initially chaotic.

Luckily, it had enough of musical interest to justify the effort involved in making it happen. Musicians formed unlikely and inspired bonds and the collective improvisations may well provide Burning Shed with a fine future release.

In direct contrast, the Saturday event went smoothly and was well attended.

The main sets (from Roger Eno, myself and Peter Chilvers, and Hugh Hopper/Theo Travis) were musically strong and warmly received by an enthusiastic audience. Hugh Hopper asked me to join him as part of his wonderful improv set with the ubiquitous Theo Travis. Having admired Hugh since being a young teen in the barren wastelands of North Cheshire, it was something of an honour.

Overall stars of the festival included, Andy Butler for his persistence in the face of potential chaos, Theo Travis for his incredibly inspired versatility and desire to play on everything with everyone, and Diane, Ross and the Centrozoon team for making their way to a frozen Norwich from exotic foreign lands. Special mention should also go to Stephen Bennett for gifting us his first live performance in over a decade (his Kajagoogoo styled hand-held synth making him look as if we'd had him in suspended animation since his last performance in the mid-1980s!).

Feeling my creative hard disk to be full, I wasn't keen on doing any more writing for a while. December and early January collaborations with Henry Fool, Hugh Hopper, Rhinoceros and the thinking man's Eraserhead, Lord Peter Chilvers, put that plan firmly in the wastebasket.

The new Henry Fool material and the Rhinoceros piece are fresh extensions of my familiar wading in the waters of croon (and quite lovely too, I think).

The Hopper material is jagged and jazzy and anything but familiar or lovely.

The brand new Bowness/Chilvers piece, however, found us making an unexpected and experimental 14 minute lover-man soul piece in 5/4. My working title of 'Papa Love' hasn't yet got the bearded one's approval, but good taste will hopefully prevail!

Early 2003 will see the release of the ambitious new No-Man album and a return trip to Toronto for myself and the Lord. In addition, Burning Shed will embark on its most major release to date (details later). Despite its wimper-like ending, 2002 proved a good year for the label. Let's hope 2003 is even better.

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