Slightly tipsy tonight after guzzling far too much wine out at dinner straight after a long shift at work that didn’t include any opportunities to stop and eat. Last time I tried to post after a few drinks things ended up in a 35-comment discussion. I doubt that will happen again as I really haven’t a clue what to write about!

I didn’t listen to much music again today (sorry if this sounds like a bit of a trend, I can assure you normal service will be resumed this weekend!) but right now the first of two new Another Timbre CDs is purring away behind me, a disc called Electricals by EKG, the duo of Ernst Karel and Kyle Bruckmann. I’ve only just made it to the start of the second track as I type this, so far too early to comment, particularly with a fair amount of Chardonnay swilling about inside of me but yeah enjoying it so far.

So the only music I have heard today is the background music played to us tonight in the Chinese restaurant we ate dinner in. I found it particularly interesting to listen to as we sat and ate (though I had to pretend I wasn’t listening really… sorry Julie! ) The music was one of those dodgy tapes of Chinese musicians performing English pop songs, mainly from the eighties on semi-traditional Eastern instruments. (or as I suspect actually only synthesised copies of them) So we got Spandau Ballet’s Gold, Wham!’s Careless Whisper, Broken Wings by Mr Mister etc… all sung by a gentleman with a strong Chinese accent backed by an odd, muzaky version of the Pekinese National Opera. I’ve heard tapes like this before in Chinese restaurants, sometimes without the singing. Maybe they are just an English phenomena, I’m not sure.

What made this tape particularly interesting though was that the tape was clearly very old and worn through being played over and over night after night. So it kept slowing down, and “Tony Hadley’s” voice would suddenly drop a few octaves for a few seconds before the tape rolled over enough for the speed to pick back up. There was a lot of hiss and crackling too and I think at one point we heard the other side of the tape playing backwards, though where it was only played very quietly under the chatter of the restaurant it wasn’t easy to tell. Then, during what sounded like a harp solo midway through “Tina Turner’s” Private Dancer the tape just stopped and I think flipped over so we got the closing few seconds of another track I couldn’t quite identify. As we sat for about an hour and a half this happened twice, at exactly the same point, so I imagine that the staff at the restaurant get to hear the same things every night over and over. A good few years back I worked in a shop over Christmas that insisted on playing a tape of about ten Christmas hits (you know the ones) over and over day in day out. About an hour before the shop closed on Christmas Eve I hurled the tape at great velocity out of the back door and into a busy road. I imagine the same fate might befall a certain tape of Chinese pop songs very soon.

Three days off now then! Yay! Tomorrow I am off into London to do a few little things and drop by Mark’s little grotto in Oto to deliver and collect some music, but the rest of the weekend will be spent working on Cathnor projects and (in case Dan is reading, which of course he doesn’t) some material for Paris Transatlantic.

Electricals is sounding good, a bit like my tummy after that meal though!