Woah its been a long time. Why you may ask? Because at the moment my ideas have been few and far between, and when they do come there is no way to record them. I have a few riffs and part ideas saved in powertab form and some in my head, but they're lacking quite a lot of invention (and length). Been trying to take in a heap more influences as well over the past six months, from krautrock (Ashra, Amon Duul, Kraftwerk, Can, etc.) to crazy electro stuff (Aphex Twin, Bazaar, Ascalaphe, etc.) and to some old psychedelia (The End, Spooky Tooth, etc.), but I'm not really learning much from them and that's where I feel the lack of ideas is starting. The last thing I got that really inspired me to try and write was the self-titled album from Boduf Songs (which I can't recommend enough), and I did manage to come up with a few bits, but I reached a wall a couple of months back and haven't managed to get on track again.

There's now a ukulele - impossible to tune well - which has inspired me to go back and learn a few simpler tracks ('A horse with no name' by America, 'Jessica' by Adam Green and 'Canaries' by Kind of Like Spitting) and try and fandangle with them a bit. It is quite fun to do, and the strings being upside down has given me a bit of a new look on ways to play stuff, but it goes out of tune too easily to ever remember something I made up on it.

Also been busy lately trying to compile a list of 2006 albums that I have, what I think of them, and what I want to get. There's a surprisingly large amount of good stuff that has come out this year already, and quite a lot more to come I'm glad to say.

As ever, I have no idea what I really should be saying in this thing, especially as I haven't got anything new recorded, nothing new written and I'm not doing live shows or anything. So I will leave here with a short list of my personal favourite releases of 2006 so far (not in order of favouritism yet)...

Barry Adamson - Stranger on the sofa
AFX - Chosen Lords
Alpha - Lost in a garden of clouds (part 2)
Amon Düül II - Yeti (re-release)
Ascalaphe - The Hollander Cafe EP
Asobi Seksu - Citrus
Bazaar - Eden Express
Beirut - Gulag Orkestar
Beleghost / The sea, like lead - split (LP)
Blanket Music - The Love/Love Translation
Camille - Le Fil (2-disc UK release)
Ray Davies - Other people's lives
The Drips - The Drips
Nathan Fake - Drowning in a sea of love
Faust - Faust IV (re-release)
Kind of Like Spitting - Thrill of the hunt (CD/LP)
Midlake - The trials of Van Occupanther
Monkey Swallows the Universe - The Bright Carvings
Parks & Recreation - What was she doing on the shore that night?
Rodrigo Y Gabriela - Rodrigo Y Gabriela
Russian Circles - Enter
The Triffids - Born Sandy Devotional (re-release)
The Wireless Stores - Dust Ghosts

V/A - The way we wore
V/A - The World's Rarest Funk 45s