I’m spending quite a lot of time recording at present for someone who often points out to friends outside the industry that ‘session musician’ is a bad description of what I do.

Not that live is going on the back burner (watch this space for gig announcements concerning Hashtag Opera Co., the Filthy Spectacula, Razzberry Jam, Kindred Spirit and the String Project!). But yesterday saw Elliot Vanderhyde and myself doing a second session for his upcoming folk album (me arranging, improvising and multitracking with viola, violin and mandolin). I think we’ve now dispatched my contributions to 5 of a projected 8 tracks, so there will be at least one more session for me to do.

This morning, meanwhile, I was following up a sudden flash of inspiration experienced by the man known as Mr E (that’s to his friends – his enemies mostly just call him ‘Aarghh!’) by whipping up incidental string parts to another song from the Filthy Spectacula album. I think that takes it to over half the track list drawing on my arranging skills, parts to be recorded (between myself and the cello playing of Stevie Mitchell) on Saturday. Watch out for something probably called Thr’p’ny Upright hitting your ears soon!

Also been exploring possibilities for a networking-strategic appearance at Truck Studios. Meanwhile, back to practising for gigs …