Last night was great, about 150 turned up for Birmingham Jazz and Sound and Music’s promotion of Harold Budd and The Neck. Both were improvised sets. Harold Budd’s ethereal piano sketches were loop and fed back to create a satisfying soundscape enhanced at one point by distant sirens from outside the venue. The Neck then stormed through an hour long improvisation in which the hypnotic rhythms and repetitions lead you to hear sounds coming from instruments you can clearly see aren’t there.

The queues for the loos were quite long but the new roof’s insulation properties worked well and it was a great atmosphere. This isn’t going to open the way to loads of music events at the venue – we can’t afford to be noisy neighbours, but it would be good to every now and again stage a gig like this which benefits from being in a non-standard venue.