Lexington, Communion, Hard-Boiled Wonderland

Thanks to everyone who made it down to shows at the Lexington on the 29th December and our first London Communion night at Notting Hill Arts Club on the 8th January. The Lexington in particular felt really good to play, and we've been nervously test running a new song, provisionally titled 'Breathe In'. It's still a little bit scary, but when it works it feels great.

Just finished two books that are related to each other. The first was 'The Book of Imaginary Beings' by Jorge Luis Borges, which is more or less what it says; a bestiary of made-up creatures from all over the world and from different time periods, from the Amphisbaena to the Zaratan. The second book is Haruki Murakami's 'Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World', which is split between modern Japan, and a fantasy city inside someone's subconcious, populated by both people and unicorns. If it sounds twee, it definitely isn't. It's wry and odd, and pretty good.

I'm very into things that combine contemporary reality with uncanny or fantastical elements, but sometimes it's hard to do that convincingly.