Stayed up all night with the Farfisa and Vermona cross filter making big sounds in an old East German newspaper building. Who said holidays were relaxing? Trying to drift through some days in a city that’s as urgent as London isn’t easy. You feel out of the loop, out of your work ethic. And the y is where the z is on the computer keyboard. A language that uses more z’s than y’s is cool with me, but it confuses.

I arrived here Tuesday morning, after running from the Lightning Bolt show straight home to pack; chasing down to the chaos that is the night coach to Stansted; boarding a plane full of Christmas shoppers. We flew right at a sunrise that seared like a strip of red neon - I dozed, Sunroof on my headphones, the sun waking me every five minutes.Took a train to Ostbahnhof, listening to Losoul as the Alexanderplatz TV tower came into view. Smiled at it like it was an old friend. It is, you know. Even though they’ve changed the crockery in the revolving cafe so I no longer want to steal it. Sure I went up there. It’s heaven, if heaven was a big concrete spike with a giant revolving golf ball stuck two-thirds of the way up it.

This city’s got so much going on and so much going for it, a displaced musician and writer feels simultaneously part of things and guiltily alone, unable to surrender to tourist activities, always aware that there are Things To Do. Sleeping in the studio and laying the foundations for a new piece of music feels right, as does calling on record labels and saying hello. Navigating the tube system and getting submerged in the art of Sophie Calle. Treating myself to an architecture journal (and not a pair of Trippen shoes). Meeting one of my favourite Berlin musicians who, coincidentally, is working with an old London friend who settled over here a few years ago.

We first came over here together, me and this friend. I fell in love with the city. It was the most playfully serious place I ever set foot in. Now the serious seems at the forefront; there’s a sharper focus, more ambition perhaps. Or maybe that’s just us.

But enough musing. I’m on a mission to get dinner, call friends, buy a Zap notebook and find the home of Staubgold records.