In preparing for the new video for my Song 'The Beast of the Air,' there was a little mishap with one of the props.

It's nearly done. Nearly time to stop tweaking and down tools.  The long difficult haul of writing and recording the new album Ironbark is nearly over.

Annoyingly, making the album is by far the easy bit. Getting people to listen to it, making enough money from it to get back up to 0 (Yup, I'm hoping to break even on this, madman that I am), that's the challenge.

But it is nearly done. I'm at the last stage, making tweaks to the mixes, listening to it on every pair of speakers I can find, constantly recording and rerecording the one line of vocals I'm not happy with until I give up and decide it'll do.

Ironbark. 55 minutes, 33 seconds, 8 songs, or possibly 4 depending on how you look at it. My second full length album, the third if you include Songs for the End of the World by Comrade Robot.

This is not the first long winded creative endeavour I've been involved with. I've acted in plays, written a couple of (oh so bad, no-one shall ever read them) novels, done gigs with new bands. With each of them there has come the point where you have to unleash them on the unsuspected public, many of whom have done nothing to deserve it and who were going about their daily business not expecting to have to endure a piece of art. No-one deserves unexpected art.

You hope you can direct it just at the people who will enjoy it. You hope they do enjoy it and that you've got at least somewhere along the road to being acceptable. Or maybe good.

There's a secret though. A Secret know only to Every Creative Person in the World.

You don't share your art with the public when it's finished. That point never comes. There are all sorts of things I could have done better with Spinning the Compass, as proud of it as I am. There are countless things that could be better with Ironbark that I won't even notice for years to come.

No, you make this things public when you can't stand to work on them anymore. 'That'll do', you say, down tools and open the doors. Art is never finished, only abandoned (as someone said – too lazy to find out who).

So, Ironbark will soon be abandoned. If you liked the last album, you'll like this one. I think.

I am proud of it, it is good. But time to stop work I think. One final tweak and I'll put my tools down.

Probably.

Ironbark is out on June 19th. A new song will be out on Monday! www.tomslatter.co.uk

I have been playing with photos and fonts.

Here is a draft flyer thingie.