For all our 'Ears' out there (you know who you are), the semi final mixes will be out this week.

What does that mean?

These are the mixes where we have made all the changes we think we should make and now we give them some breathing space before finalising them and sending them off for mastering.

This allows us to pick up on things we missed, rethink ideas we had (eg: that idea seemed good at the time, oops), so there could still be several weeks delay between this 'semi final' mix and the release version, and much as we have done for the previous albums, we're looking for help from our 'Ears''.

If you've participated in the Ear program before and want to be involved in this one, drop me a line.

You'll receive a Semi Final Mix CD with the songs in alphabetical order plus your own set of hand made order cards, yes your own Pokemon style deck of cards with the song names on them that you can shuffle into the order you think best for the CD release.

You'll listen, make notes, set a CD order and hurrah!

Yes I know these days it's all about play lists, that's OK, that means each listener makes the same call when they load it up onto their digital device.

The kinds of questions we ask for a CD order include:

I get in the car, put a CD in and what's the first thing I want to hear?

How does it go as a road music album?

Does the first song set the tone for the album?

Do we put the 'best' song first? How on earth do you decide which song is the 'best 'song?

Our usual process is to collate the results, have a think about it, argue, try a few different approaches and then do whatever we think is the right thing to do.