BELLA1006CD
Release date: 22 May 2020
‘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 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.”
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.”
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. He’ll be touring the album 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.”
"Burgess’s fifth solo album continues that mood in an optimistic celebration that draws a natural line through all his phases. Recorded at Rockfield studios, also birthplace of the Charlatans’ 1997 platinum album Tellin’ Stories, with collaborators including Grumbling Fur, Nik Colk Void and Thighpaulsandra, I Love the New Sky is neck-deep in nerdery, from the nod to the Cure’s Boys Don’t Cry in the opening jangles of Empathy for the Devilto Comme D’Habitude’s for-the-heads reference to the song that became My Way. But it wears its learning lightly, driven by hooky melodies and strong choruses: Lucky Creatures relishes its Scott Walker-ish spaciousness, stretching out in swirls of synth and string, while Sweetheart Mercury has a vamping rhythm enlivened by squelchy Moog. It’s all crowned by the confidence of I Got This, which reconciles Charlatans-esque country-soul Hammond to classy baroque-pop ba-ba-bas in a way that is unabashedly uplifting." - Gardian
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