By Trevor Jones and Marcus Cliffe 
9 December 2004
TREVOR JONES: Start work on 'Glow'. It's about the comfort of alcohol, softening the blows, not knowing whether your joyful or drunk. I like to drink; it can take the edge off the disappointments, but it can also take the edge off your ambition, so, a cautionary tale about scaring your angels away. A Rhodes and drum loop set up the vocal. We do it at a slow tempo so that we're stumbling, not skipping, Marcus develops a great rolling tom tom for the chorus that suits the woozy sentiment. I can hear BJ Cole, but no immediate ideas for arrangements, so we'll come back to it later. Marcus plays me a guitar piece that he's been working on. It's beautiful and brief. I'm sure it will lead to something. The day finishes with a pasta dinner chez Cliffe, and question time ("but why?") with Marcus's daughter Rebecca. Next we look at 'Baby's in the House'. My girlfriend Di has bought a house in Corsica. We fell in love with the island about 5 years ago, and Di was so taken with Calvi in the north-west of the island that she acquired a house in the tiny village of Montemaggiore some 10 km inland. The views are spectacular, Monte Grosso towering behind us, and the gentle sweep of Calvi bay ahead. For a while all she could think about was Corsica, every moment spent in London wishing she was elsewhere (a bit like some of the characters in 'Alaska') Hers is a happy passion, but with the increasing desire of many to be "anywhere but here" (witness the rush to buy the 'other life' abroad) it was the starting point of the song.
MARCUS CLIFFE: I think I got Trev to play my 1990 Taylor 514 for this one as his Levoy wasn't cutting it for this track (probably the strings!) AKG 451 again.
10 December 2004
TREVOR JONES: Marcus adds bass (Fender precision) to 'Glow', 'Baby's in the House' and 'What Kate did next'. I love it when the bass goes on, the songs become rooted. It's a pretty effortless process for Marcus, he just plugs in, plays, and it sounds great. He should do it for a living!
MARCUS CLIFFE: very rare 1960 fender precision in burgundy mist, a custom colour for the time. I think it was recorded direct through a Joe Meek VC1-Q or if not through a POD PRO XT using aHiwat 100 and 4x12.
13 December 2004
TREVOR JONES:Rebecca is in and excited about going to a Busted gig at Wembley. Marcus is doing some gigs with Mark Knopfler and gives me a promo of his new album 'Shangrila'. There are some lovely songs. Very understated. He's going gracefully! I've set some lyrics to the guitar piece that Marcus gave me last week. It's now 'Brown Eyes Looking Back'. Both of our ladies have beautiful brown eyes, a starting point, but it's developed into something quite sad and regretful, about "the lingo of loss" so, no dedications there!. Light, or reflected light, seems to feature in the newer songs, so we toy with the idea of 'Glow' for album title. I'll work out why later. Two vocal takes and we're done. I love it as it is, just a guitar and a voice. A beautiful sketch. I've had this song 'Call it Home' for a while. We start it with a Rhodes pad and a scratchy loop. Sounds great. I do a vocal and some Bee Gee harmonies, then Marcus adds some low notes on his six string bass. Rebecca is back from her Busted gig. They made her friends ears hurt! All that way for two songs. (I thought they only had two songs!)We have a look at some photos that Marcus took in the Summer while he was touring in Japan. There's a great shot of a lady walking away, that Marcus has treated - the colours are great. We decide to use it as the cover shot for the single 'Mystery to Me'. Also look at some shots that my girlfriend Di took of Marcus and me at my cottage. We'd hit the bottle the night before the shoot, Di got us up too early as the light was good, so the shots are not the most flattering....Marcus and I nip out for a curry, then back to his flat for Merlot and Little Britain. I don't get it, Marcus does!
MARCUS CLIFFE: Ah Japan... a wonderful country, I have happy memories of touring there last year. I bought a tiny little Optio S4i camera while there that has started an interest in photography, I've just bought a nice digital SLR.
The Rhodes in question is Scarabee's sampled Rhodes which is the best I've played, it has 12 velocity splits so its very responsive. It is loaded into Steinberg's HALION sampler direct into NUENDO, a very seamless operation. Trev is constantly amazed and pleased that with new technology like Nuendo and Halion we can instantly just try out ideas that before would have taken hours to set up, want to try bassoon with tubular bells and DX7?....Bang! it’s loaded.
15 December 2004
TREVOR JONES: 'Strange Sympathy' The idea of a misdirected phone call leading to a relationship is not new, but I wondered at the idea of The Samaritans in reverse. A benevolent voice ringing and asking a self satisfied, contented stranger "Who are you? How are you? Where are you?" seemed an interesting starting point. It was also a way of putting the hook mantra "Kindness, Wisdom and Love" into somebody else's mouth. Might have seemed pious coming directly from me, even though I do agree with the sentiment, however naive. Showed Marcus the song (almost two songs really) on acoustic, and he came up with an orchestral rhythm that gives the song a quirky and slightly unsettling atmosphere; perfect for a sympathetic stalker! Vocal and move on. We have a listen back to what we've done so far. Take some notes and break for Christmas. I'm going to Corsica for a fortnight which should clear my head. I always come back with a song or two.
MARCUS CLIFFE: Over the Christmas period I'm going to upgrade my software to Nuendo version 3 which is a major update and generally do some computer house keeping (new drivers for Matrox, Lynx and the new EMT 140 plate for my UAD cards mmmmmmm nice!), Oh and change strings on about 7 guitars in the studio so we're ready to go come the new year.