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Released on July 17, 2015 via InsideOut Music
This is the criminally underrated Tim Bowness’ third solo album. As many of you will know, Tim has been around for some considerable time now as a musician, collaborator, and producer; also a mainstay of No-Man alongside the mighty Steve Wilson, and an active member of Henry Fool. Stupid Things That Mean The World follows hot on the heels of 2014’s Abandoned Dancehall Dreams, so we can see, he’s no slouch either. You may not have heard of Tim, he doesn’t appear to seek the spotlight, but you need – really need – to make it your business to do so.
Stupid Things That Mean The World is a brilliant album. Really very good indeed. The musicianship is first rate – alongside Bowness’ core compadres (Stephen Bennett, Michael Bearpark and Andrew Booker, Colin Edwin and Bruce Soord) are turns from legendary musicians such as Phil Manzanera (Roxy Music), and David Rhodes (Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel). The whole thing is subtly blended, weaving the magic of each musician in and out of the album’s rich and detailed tapestry. That there are no “Whoo-hoo! Phil Manzanera everybody!” moments that stand out like sore thumbs is a testimony to the highly detailed, artisan nature of this record.
Bowness is an outstanding story-teller, his soft croon is perhaps reminiscent of Nick Drake, but it’s clear from the off that he is his own man here. His voice is very much to the front of the mix on all these tracks. It’s something of a cliché to say that a singer sings directly to you, but the emphasis on the vocals really makes you think that. Tim clearly has a lot to say, and he wants to communicate it to you directly, without any kind of obfuscation. The song writing also manages to pull off that trick of taking something very mundane, and turning it into something heroic. Simple tales of ordinary lives, ordinary emotions are raised on lush orchestration and arrangements to become tales that transcend the ordinary-ness of our lives.
Transcendence is, after all, one of the central motifs of that Rock which we call Progressive, and if you think that prog-rock died in 1980, come and listen to this album. It draws on its musical history, without being burdened by it – so no space-craft warp space, no mighty multi-dimensional warriors, no monstrous plants looking for those oh-so-delicious humans. This is the sound of grown up prog. In taking his subject matter as love, loss, our sense of self, Tim Bowness transforms these things that we all feel, into something deeply tangible. Yes, the album is melancholic, but then isn’t life melancholic? Bitter-sweet? Isn’t that a feeling at the core of what it is to be British? Isn’t that at the heart of the works of Nick Drake, Syd Barrett, Billy Bragg? I’d add Tim’s name quite happily to that rosta of singer-songwriters. Stupid Things That Mean The World is that strong.
Every track on the album holds your attention, each a delicate choreographed blend of words and music. Sometimes heartbreaking – ‘Know That You Were Loved’ – sometimes thundering – ‘Press Reset’ – sometimes intriguing – ‘Great Electric Teenage Dream’ – sometimes just damned great – ‘Sing to Me’. As the title of the album suggests each song takes something small, something day-to-day as a starting point, the little things in life, and draws them into grandeur. If anything the album loses a little of it’s momentum in the fourth quarter. ‘Everything but You’ is a great little instrumental track, but I’d like to have heard more drawing as it does on flutes and strings, ‘At The End Of The Holiday’ seems to just peter-out at the end which is a shame as the first half of the record has some great dynamics that build your anticipation and excitement. Perhaps we’ll see a bit more of that next time, but it’s almost as if the wind has gone out of the sails by the finish and we are left becalmed like a small boat on a milk sea.
Nevertheless, Tim Bowness’ has crafted an album of quite outstanding brilliance. Sublime.
