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TIM BURGESS

Tim Burgess

A Gain / Stoned Alone Again Or - Seahawks Remix / Hours - Tandy Love Remix

O.Genesis present a super Limited 12" Pressing, exclusive to Piccadilly Records, of remixes from Tim Burgess' recent, critically acclaimed, album "Oh No, I Love You".

Seahawks delivers a stunning 11 minute remix of "A Gain//Stoned Alone Again Or (Seahawks Remix)", exclusive to 12", whilst on the flip Tandy Love aka Andy Votel brings his remix skills to "Hours".



TRACK LISTING

A – A Gain // Stone Alone Again Or (Seahawks Remix)
B – Hours // Tandy Love (Andy Votel Remix)

Tim Burgess

Typical Music

    Has there been a busier musician over the last two years? A more prolific artist? More creative? More heroic?

    Tim Burgess – as self-effacing a band leader, solo star, label runner, repeat memoirist and all-round caffeinated can-do kid as you’ll find – would certainly shrink from the latter accolade. “A hero??” he’d likely mutter with a shake of his boyish mop. “For playing some records?”

    Yes, Tim, we would say that. And not just because with the May 2020, mid-lockdown appearance of I Love The New Sky, his fifth solo album, he undauntedly pushed on with releasing an album that brought much-needed sunshine to a world enveloped in gloom.

    Over the course of the first year of the pandemic, Tim’s Twitter Listening Parties were a lifeline to many. At a time when the world shut down, we all retreated indoors, alone, and cancelled gigs were the least of our worries, the North Country Boy’s idea of utilising social media to unite us round a digital turntable was inspired.

    Meanwhile, Burgess was writing. And writing. And writing. From September 2020 to summer 2021, ideas poured out of Burgess. He’d been encouraged by Simon Raymonde, boss of his record label Bella Union ¬– and, of course, a former Cocteau Twin. He applied a musician’s logic: if you can’t tour your last album, write a new one. Then, when you can tour again, you’ll have two albums’ worth of songs to play.

    Well, now, arguably, Burgess has three albums’ worth of songs to perform live. Typical Music is a 22-track double, a blockbuster set of songs that are as expansive and diverse as they are rich. As fun as they are funky. That embrace heartache and love. That run the gamut, from ABBA (in the shape of guest vocalist Pearl Charles, whose own brilliant Magic Mirror album is the sound of the magic Swedes doin' disco) to Zappa (free-form studio experimentation is go!)


    TRACK LISTING

    Side A
    1 Here Comes The Weekend
    2 Curiosity
    3 Time That We Call Time
    4 Flamingo
    5 Revenge Through Art
    6 Kinectic Connection
    Side B
    1 Typical Music
    2 Take Me With You
    3 After This
    4 The Centre Of Me (Is A Symphony Of You)
    5 When I See You
    Side C
    1 Magic Rising
    2 Tender Hooks
    3 L.O.S.T Lost / Will You Take A Look At My Hand Please
    4 A Bloody Nose
    5 In May
    Side D
    1 Slacker (Than I've Ever Been)
    2 View From Above
    3 A Quarter To Eight
    4 Sooner Than Yesterday
    5 Sure Enough
    6 What's Meant For You Won't Pass By You

    Tim Burgess

    The Listening Party

      The Charlatans' Tim Burgess invites you to the greatest listening party of all time.

      In 2020 when the world was forced to hit pause on live in-person gigs, Tim Burgess found an ingenious way to bring people together by inviting artists and bands, from Paul McCartney and New Order to Michael Kiwanuka and Kylie, to host real-time album playbacks via Twitter. Relive 100 of the most memorable listening parties here with stories from bands and fans, rarely seen backstage images, and unique insider info from those who created these iconic albums.

      "Hey Twitter, let's all say a big thanks to Tim for these brilliant events this year! We really needed them. So much great music being talked about.'" - Sir Paul McCartney

      "Twitter being used for something really positive." - Mary Beard

      Tim Burgess

      One Two Another

        Tim Burgess is lead singer of one of the defining bands of the ’90s, The Charlatans. In One Two Another, the singer presents and annotates his lyrics – from The Charlatans to The Chemical Brothers – allowing an insight into a very idiosyncratic and creative song-writing process.

        As Tim writes: ‘That’s the thing. I imagine almost everybody writes songs in different ways, but then again each person may use all the different ways to come up with the lyrics to a song. From lists to experiences and stories, there are no rules. A good song is a good song whoever writes it and however the writing happens. I only know what I do. In this here book I have collected some of the ideas and thoughts and words.’

        ‘Tim Burgess is a crusader and vinyl’s epic voyager. He knows why pop’s art, a culture and a cure. Learn and listen. He knows good things’ Johnny Marr

        ‘You can’t feel blue around Tim. He makes you feel happy, not just about music but about life. Even the most cynical of souls (mine) become infected by his gorgeous energy. Plus he gives good vinyl’ Sharon Horgan

        Tim Burgess

        Ascent Of The Ascended EP

          This 6-track EP contains two superb new tracks, “Yours. To Be”, and “The Ascent Of The Ascended”, recorded soon after the album was finished, as well as four tracks recorded in New York City back in March as a live session for Paste magazine. Three of the tracks are from I Love The New Sky alongside a new version of The Charlatan’s classic ‘The Only One I Know’.

          Of the lead track, “Yours. To Be”, Burgess says: “At the tail end of the glory of the night before - with all the hope and beauty that the following morning brings. Away from the glare of the party - like the calm after the storm has left town. It’s a feeling that’s so pure and uncluttered. It’s around a while, then real life starts to creep back in. It’s all about making the most of moments as they are happening .”  

          Burgess goes on to say: “There was an energy that came from recording the album with such a brilliant band - I didn’t want it to end, I wanted to record a bit of a magnum opus, which is where Ascent of the Ascended came in. I’d always wanted to work with Charles Hayward from This Heat, so we have him a ring and he said yeah. With “Yours. To Be” being almost like an instant feeling you get in a moment, very rarely in your life - the two songs are so different but they somehow complement each other. So an EP was the perfect idea.”

          “We had so many plans for playing live this year - from South by Southwest to Glastonbury and everything in between. But that wasn’t to be. We played four shows in New York before lockdown happened - so our session for Paste Magazine was such a rare event, we’ve included the songs to complete the EP.”

          TRACK LISTING

          1. The Ascent Of The Ascended
          2. Yours. To Be
          3. Laurie (Paste Session)
          4. The Mall (Paste Session)
          5. The Only One I Know (Paste Session)
          6. Undertow (Paste Session)

          Tim Burgess & Peter Gordon

          Temperature High (Benjamin Freeney Versions)

            'Foom label head Benjamin Freeney reworks Tim Burgess & Peter Gordon's restless, psychedelic epic, "Temperature High" into three new forms (two cuts for the dancefloor, and one ambient interlude), rearranging the rich source material of the original (metallic field recordings from the New York subway, Peter Gordon's original Korg bassline reincarnated in sub-bass form, Tim Burgess' ethereal vocal cut-up into new patterns) and fusing it with new percussive and melodic elements. The original track was featured on Tim Burgess & Peter Gordon’s Same Language, Different Worlds album from 2016, with contributions from Arthur Russell's close collaborators Peter Zummo and Mustafa Ahmed, as well as Factory Floor’s Nik Void.'

            TRACK LISTING

            1. Temperature High (Benjamin Freeney Cold Light Dub)
            2. Temperature High (Benjamin Freeney Interlude Dub)
            3. Temperature High (Benjamin Freeney Warm Blood Dub)

            Tim Burgess

            I Love The New Sky

              How inspiring it is to hear Tim Burgess conjuring up exciting and life-affirming sounds as he, almost inconceivably, enters his fifth decade on public duty. Frontman, singer, label boss, DJ and author, he’s been instrumental in so many great records over the years, always bringing enthusiasm, positivity and diversity of influence, which altogether light the way for those who hold him dear.

              While in The Charlatans, Tim’s indefatigable energy has been a consistent fuel for the band across thirteen high-charting albums, his solo adventure has been no less extraordinary, scaling new heights in 2020 with his fifth solo release to date: ‘I Love The New Sky’. Released on Bella Union, it features wonderfully connective songs of everyday minutiae and universal experience, of love and anger, of loss and belonging, all united by elaborate yet natural arrangements and an effortless but deceptively expert way with melody.

              ‘I Love The New Sky’ differs from its predecessors in that all twelve tracks were self-penned. “In the past, I've written collaboratively,” says a characteristically, but rightfully excited Burgess. “(2012's) ‘Oh No I Love You’ was written with Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner in Nashville, and then ‘Same Language, Different Worlds’ was a collaboration with Peter Gordon who had worked extensively with Arthur Russell.”

              The spark for ‘I Love The New Sky’ came after a year of touring another album, ‘As I Was Now’, which he’d made in 2008 but had a belated release ten years later. “That one was made in three days, just friends getting together”, he says – the amigos included Josh Hayward from The Horrors, Primal Scream Keyboard player Martin Duffy, Ladyhawke and My Bloody Valentine's Debbie Googe.

              “I didn’t realise the album hadn't actually come out as I had a copy of it on my ipod so I figured that maybe everybody did. So, all those years later I thought it would make an interesting release for Record Store Day. It did really well, so I was approached to tour it for Independent Venue Week and after that a load of festivals asked us to play too. Average Sex were the support band that then became my band so it was a brilliant little tour. After that, I was really energized, and I thought, Right, I'm going to do another album, but really concentrate on making it a solo record, where I write everything on my own and all the songs are the very best I can make them.”

              “I’d been listening to a lot of Isaac Hayes, Olivia Tremor Control, Carole King, Todd Rundgren, John Maus, Weyes Blood and Kevin Ayres - I’m not sure how much they have influenced the album but they were the impetus and inspiration.”

              The twelve tunes of ‘I Love The New Sky’ were authored, he says, “in Norfolk, in the middle of the countryside, with the nearest shop eight miles away. There are no distractions, and I guess that way things happen. I wrote everything on acoustic guitar, and the chords were really considered. The guitar lines would lead the melody, and the melody would inform the lyrics – just dreaming away with music.”

              So far, so Laurel Canyon, though ‘I Love The New Sky’ would end up sounding anything but hippie/folkie, thanks to a connection Tim made while living in a warehouse space in gritty Seven Sisters in North London, before heading to Norfolk.

              “The Quietus had their office there,” he recalls. “I used to know pretty much all the stuff they were writing about, but then their album of the year for 2013 was ‘Glynnaestra’ by Grumbling Fur, and I really fell in love with it. I started talking to the band about working together. To cut a long story short I recorded a song with Grumbling Fur, they remixed two Charlatans tracks and a couple of Daniel O'Sullivan's solo albums came out on my label.”

              As well as bass and drum duties on I Love The New Sky, O’Sullivan plays piano on much of the album, from the bouncing chamber-pop chords of ‘Sweetheart Mercury’ and the punchy chorus of ‘Empathy For The Devil’, through to ‘Comme D’Habitude’’s juxtaposition of blissfully rolling West Coast singer-songwriting and a complex Sparks-y Broadway-esque bridge, to the Velvets-y ramalama moves on ‘Warhol Me’ and ‘Undertow’’s sombre balladry.

              The album was arranged and recorded quickly but not rushed: “Ideas happen fast, don’t they?” Tim reasons. The first sessions at Eve Studios in Stockport were with long-serving Charlatans engineer Jim Spencer. Tim, Daniel and Nik Void cut three tracks in two days, with Nik layering up modular synths in line with her previous day job in Factory Floor.

              A third keyboard maestro entered the picture when Thighpaulsandra, a maverick musician and producer, came into the frame, best known for his work for Julian Cope, Coil Spiritualized and Elizabeth Fraser. I found out that he was based at ‘Rockfield’ [legendary residential facility near Monmouth, South Wales]. So I said, ‘Okay, that’s where we’re going to record the rest of it’.” As well as enlisting his know-how as an engineer, the cosmically-inclined Welshman also applied vintage synths and what Tim hazily calls “wizardry”.

              For Burgess himself, the return to Rockfield was meaningful: “I hadn’t been there since we recorded ‘Tellin' Stories’” he says. “It was a matter of ending this long period of not going there, because after Rob died we couldn’t face it again. So nearly 25 years later, we returned and the positive feelings came back. Mark Collins [Charlatans guitarist] came down to play on ‘Empathy For The Devil’ and ‘Sweetheart Mercury’, and he actually had the same room as he had in 1996. It was like no time had passed at all.”

              “I was in search of a certain sound there,” Tim adds, of his overriding motivation for returning. “I couldn’t exactly put my finger on what it was I was searching for, but I knew if it was there that I’d be able to find it”.

              The results are nothing short of astounding. ‘I Love The New Sky’ has landed somewhere between Paul McCartney's ‘RAM’ and Brian Eno's ‘Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)' and certainly that recipe covers both the all-pervasive tunefulness and high quality. Stylistically, though, it runs the widest gamut, from 'Empathy For The Devil's gospel style rockabilly skip, through to the sophisticated song-craft of ‘Sweetheart Mercury’ and the Nilsson-esque ‘Sweet Old Sorry Me’, with the angst-y gravitas of ‘Undertow’, which Tim describes as “a mood-changer, influenced by 10cc.”

              Lyrically, this might almost be a defining collection from Burgess after thirty years honing his craft. There’s plenty of typical lightness of touch of ‘Only Took A Year’s joking reference to the album’s twelve-month gestation period, and the quip, “what’s your favourite Cure LP? I like ‘Pornography! But it could be any one of three.”

              Equally amusing in its self-referencing is ‘Warhol Me’ set to a soundtrack of New York bubblegum pop. ‘Sweet Old Sorry Me’ finds Burgess reminiscing on his former life in Los Angeles, but drolly updating the Steely Dan vernacular for the social-media era with the line, “I had to unsubscribe from that particular tribe”. ‘Lucky Creatures’, meanwhile, follows Tim on his day back in LA on tour, as he enjoys “tacos on the underground”, revisiting his old everyday haunts in Hollywood.

              ‘The Mall’, too, revels in its everyday setting: “it’s an ordinary feature of everyday life. I’m pretty sure that the ‘escalating drama on a moving staircase’ bit happened at Boots in Piccadilly Circus. Maybe they'll put a blue plaque there one day. I love it round there, it’s like the whole world is happening – but it’s taking a small idea and trying to make it into something more universal.”

              ‘I Got This’ has the line “the future is friendly”. Says Tim: “Everyone’s been going through a lot of tough times. And the future is uncertain. But you have to have that optimistic outlook – like, waking up in the morning and feeling that it’s gonna be a good day.”

              There is a sense of community within this solo venture, which is emphasised when Tim and Nik’s six year old son joins in on ‘Comme D’Habitude’, and with the assembly of what Tim calls a “gang chorus”, in the spirit of Dexy’s Midnight Runners’ ‘Plan B’, for the closing chant of the album title on ‘Laurie’. This song is particularly heartfelt, as Tim mistily reveals, written for “someone I love who I never met”. The end section happened spontaneously at Rockfield: “Everybody that came into the studio, I asked them to sing, so there are about 20 people doing that vocal – Mark Collins, Daniel, our friend Ally, Nik, Thighpaulsandra – everybody singing it, and for this spirit that is loved.”

              The final stages of the album’s year-long narrative arc were enacted at Jet Studio in Brussels, with the Echo Collective string section. Burgess looked on “mesmerised at what was happening to the songs, taking an even more magical turn.”

              With that icing on the cake, Tim is in no doubt that he has his finest solo record under his belt. On this occasion, it’s coming out on time, and he’ll be touring it with a live ensemble featuring Daniel O’Sullivan, Thighpaulsandra, another O Genesis artiste called Keel Her, and renowned avant-jazz violinist Peter Broderick, who plays on ‘’Empathy…’ and will recreate the Echo Collective parts, too. So, the community will grow. Just like Tim says, “the future is friendly.”


              STAFF COMMENTS

              Andy says: Tim’s fifth solo album is his best by a mile and what’s even sweeter is that he wrote every song totally by himself. It’s the quintessential Tim experience; warm, open-hearted, playful and experimental, but absolutely always with a catchy pop hook at the centre of everything. There’s a sense of wonder and a carefree spirit at play, but don’t be fooled; these twelve ditties have sophisticated arrangements and are expertly embellished with sax, strings and piano, the latter provided by Grumbling Fur’s Daniel O’Sullivan. You could call this soft psyche or indie easy listening except Tim always throws a spanner in the works, a mad detour or delightful quirk. It’s a record full of surprises. Having warmed the hearts of a nation with his wonderful listening parties this summer, Tim has made the kind of album we’ll all be pouring over ourselves for many years to come.

              TRACK LISTING

              1. Empathy For The Devil
              2. Sweetheart Mercury
              3. Comme D'Habitude
              4. Sweet Old Sorry Me
              5. The Warhol Me
              6. Lucky Creatures
              7. The Mall
              8. Timothy
              9. Only Took A Year
              10. I Got This
              11. Undertow
              12. Laurie

              Tim Burgess

              Telling Stories

                Telling Stories by Tim Burgess of The Charlatans is one of the decade's most revealing rock books

                'Clear, honest. An unusually frank and well-written rock memoir' The Times

                The Charlatans. Madchester. Britpop. Taking on the world. Here are the highs, the lows, the joys, the agonies, and the stories of what it's like to be in a rock band, as told by front man and survivor, Tim Burgess.

                'Like the best bits of every cautionary rock star tale . . . there is armed robbery and smuggling. There's serious fraud. There are near and actual death experiences, divorce, industrial cocaine consumption and magnificent cameos from Madonna, Alan McGee, Ronnie Wood, Joe Strummer, LA drug dealer Harry The Dog, and Joaquin Phoenix. A minor classic' Q

                'A vivid read' Independent on Sunday

                Tim Burgess

                Tim Book Two

                  In 2012, Tim Burgess of the Charlatans published his hugely successful and critically acclaimed memoir, Telling Stories. Tim really enjoyed his new role as an author, and so here it is: Tim Book Two - a tale of Tim's lifelong passion for records, the shops that sell them, and the people who make them.

                  In some ways, the biggest events in Tim's life happened in the couple of years after he had finished writing his first book rather than in the forty years before. So he had more to say, but instead of another autobiography he chose a different way of telling the story. Tim set himself a quest. He would get in touch with people he admired, and ask them to suggest an album for him to track down on his travels, giving an insight into what makes them tick. It would also offer a chance to see how record shops were faring in the digital age - one in which vinyl was still a much-treasured format.

                  Tim assembled his cast of characters, from Iggy Pop to Johnny Marr, David Lynch to Cosey Fanni Tutti. Texts, phone calls, emails and handwritten notes went out. Here is the tender, funny and surprising story of what came back.

                  Tim Burgess is a singer-songwriter and record label owner, best known as the lead singer of one of the defining bands of the 1990s, The Charlatans.

                  Tim was born in Salford but grew up in a village near Northwich, Cheshire. Leaving school at 16 to work at ICI, his real love was music and soon afterwards he was invited to join new band, The Charlatans. They went on to have 3 number 1 albums and 17 top 30 singles. For 12 years, Burgess lived in Los Angeles but now lives back in the UK. 


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