I felt ill in the night, I awoke queasy my skin very cold, perhaps mild hypothermia which I've had a couple of times, and not surprising when the 'warm' room I went to sleep in was 14 degrees and gradually cooled overnight. I got up and had a hot drink which instantly revived me, but I lay awake with stomach discomfort for hours afterwards.
I dreamt that I was part of an astronaut crew sent to visit alien world, our space ship shaped a bit like Captain Kremmen's ship, Troll-1. The world was desert-like and initially had no people, only strange vertical structures, like stalagmites, some of which were cacti or spongy alien plants. This imagery was probably inspired by Deb's new lava lamp which creates many strange shapes while warming up. We left to explore, and soon noticed the occasional android, but it was clear that there were no living creatures here, only robots. I suspected that some living puppet masters were somewhere hidden. Suddenly, several members of the crew were captured, leaving just me and one other in an alien city. There were suddenly lots of robots around, a thronging metropolis, and we tried to fit in. A parade down the main street included our ship, the crew members proudly shown off as prisoners. A flying robot flew by us on the pavement, a metal pizza box advertising its contents in a cheerful robot voice. The aim was to open the box and eat the pizza as it hovered there, it played pop music while you ate. I wanted some pizza but sensed it was a trap as none of the robots would want to eat.
I woke late. A slower day than yesterday due to lack of sleep, but I've worked on the Rembrandt tune, and the cover art. I'm unsure why I put so much work into the cover art, as I'm unlikely to make a CD, and I seem to waste many days of life doing it - but it's all part of the art. I've been making artwork for my albums since the late 1990s, having these printed in the local copy shop. Nobody back then saw the albums, and the tiny number of reviewers probably don't have a copy now, so perhaps that time was wasted too? No! The artwork is no less valid than the music, which is as equally alive or dead. My motivation is to do my best, and better than before. This will be my first album in a new, larger format with 3000x3000 pixels each side, which is something of a digital standard (as advocated by Sony). My albums up until now were slightly smaller as 2850, but with a bleed so could possibly extend to 3000. 2850 is enough anyway, and 3000 isn't really big enough for a 300dpi 12-inch record, so the size is somewhat arbitrary, but I'll use Sony's guidelines.
Here's the cover so far:
And the rear:
