It was in a Central London bar that the seed for my next album was sown. I was mellowing to one of the Cafe del Mar albums. It was then that I decided to write a collection of chill-out tracks which would draw loosely on that genre. I felt that The Liberty Project contained a few stocking fillers: tracks which I would not have included in hindsight (don't let that stop you buying it though. Almost everybody disagrees with me). There is only one track on my third and latest album that I'm not reasonably happy with (and I'm not telling you what it is). Ironically, many people pick that one as their favourite. This is a perfect exemplar of the dangers of subjectivity.

The album title The Human Zone depicts my growing despair at the socio-cultural conditioning of humanity. Where, in Britain, people seem to have learnt their social graces from the crass vulgarity of TV soaps such as Eastenders. I had been thinking for some time how pleasant it would be to uproot and build my own little musical oasis in the wilds of Scotland or somewhere. A place where the people one did have contact with would be polite and courteous. Maybe I'm mellowing with maturity. Oh sorry!, we were talking about my third album.

Welcome to the Last Hotel, the opening track, was inspired by Fukuyama's hotel at the end of History from his book The End of History and the Last Man. I would strongly recommend that those of you with an interest in such things read it: it's very entertaining. I continued the historical titular theme with titles such as Twilight in the Modern World and Road to Evermore.

Overall, I didn't really end up with a Cafe del Mar type of album, but a halfway house between that and my natural propensity towards incessant guitar soloing: perhaps, though, it's something original. The Latin vibe was still there. So much so that someone later described me as the cockney Santana - I can't remember if I punched him or not.

So there you have it. A reasonably substantial analysis of my first three guitar based instrumental solo albums and not a single mention of a guitar string, plectrum, scale, amp, effects pedal or any of the other techno-jarg' with which others indulge themselves. I once heard a photographer say that the camera gets in the way of the art. I would agree with that particular thesis. I find the philosophy behind people's work far more inspiring than the tools they use in order to create it. Technophiles would disregard the wonders of the Mona Lisa and embark upon an in depth study of da Vinci's paintbrush.