Iain Cameron's Diary
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2010-11-10 - 2:54 p.m.

Yesterday I went to Oxford by coach from Heathrow after an early lunch. I arrived with an hour to spare so I slipped into Blackwell�d Music and came across a book about the aesthetics of electronic music only just published by an academic at the University of Southern California called Joanna Demmers. It turns out she is a flautist playing avant garde repertoire. She takes 1980 as her starting point as it was about this time that synths became cheap enough and easy enough to use for them to be much more widely used. She even refers to Casio as a leading brand in this regard. Her aesthetic goal is to span many different genres from house and techno to sound art and field recording. I went into a caf� and read through most of the first Ch and then got to the end of the second on the coach ride back to Heathrow. I found JD on Linkedin and went for it.

The seminar as in a hotel on the Banbury Rd not far from a side street where James and I once had an Italian meal. I was quite early arriving and had an interesting chat with the Professor of Education. I was able to keep my end up OK because I remembered what we had last discussed three or more years ago. Also I was able to get the conversation into Speculative Realism which she hadn�t caught up with. Although the seminar went on for two hours the time sped by although it has to be said that the speakers didn�t prove the case they set out to � that the economy is splitting into an hour glass shape with fewer people in the middle..

Then it was time for drinks and the meal. The first course was oysters which are not quite my favourite but the fish which followed was good. One of the people on my table talked about the impact of A J Ayer on him when he was training to be a priest in Rome. This gave me a chance to tell the unusual story of Wayne Shorter, John Coltrane, Language Truth and Logic and a A Love Supreme. The talk moved into the question of whether there was ever a red light district in Oxford.

This morning Gilbert sent about a dozen tracks from my recent stuff. It was a struggle getting my ear back into working order for the mixing and indeed I only managed to get a couple done before lumch.

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