There’s a small heap of posts at the moment that are either half-written or on the to-do list, but right now what’s most pressing is In Praise of Shadows news. Obviously delays have struck again, this time at the last possible moment before the CD manufacturing – it’s hard not to feel the frustration as deadlines merrily come and go, but these experiences will definitely stand me in good stead should a second release ever happen.

Either way, the final product is almost certainly going to be worth the wait. It’s already feeling very unified, from the art and graphics to the tracks themselves, and I’m even satisfied with CD2’s mix – it has been a regular commuting soundtrack since February, probably a sign that it’s one of my better efforts over the past couple of years.

Of more interest to everyone will be the unmixed tracks, and to finally make things more public I’ve decided to start uploading previews from this weekend. Starting tomorrow, I’ll add a track each day, giving you a chance to check each one out while we wait. At the end of that process I’m pretty confident that the album will be at, or close to, the manufacturing stage, and will then be available to order next month.

Most people will already know that the first track is Proteus’ Monochrome, but we’ve since decided on an improved master that honestly improves it a lot. The track structure itself is unchanged, so it might be nice to have track 2’s preview ready to hear tomorrow, as well.

Finally, to coincide with the previews there’ll be some logo action happening, incorporating a little preview of the album artwork. Hope that’s enough of a silver lining for now, and that everyone enjoys the Lucky Lotus set later today.