Tim Bowness speaks to Jason Barnard about his seventh solo album ‘Butterfly Mind’, due for release on the 5 August 2022. Produced in conjunction with long-time collaborator Brian Hulse, and mixed by Steven Wilson, this new release brings in art rock and progressive experimentation to Tim’s plaintive vocals.
Your previous album ‘Late Night Laments’ was completed just before the lockdown. How has the COVID era impacted you and the creative and recording process for ‘Butterfly Mind’?
I didn’t start writing for Butterfly Mind for eight months. Late Night Laments was an a emotional work and I felt I’d said all I needed to say when I’d finished it.
I wrote Lost Player in October 2020 plus a couple of new pieces with Richard Barbieri and Brian Hulse and suddenly felt the desire to write again. In the previous eight months, I’d only recorded covers or re-recorded old Plenty songs for fun.
Butterfly Mind was written and recorded between October 2020 and September 2021. It was all new material – as in, no retro-fitting old songs to fit the current concept – and I’d say the process was similar to previous albums. One significant difference is that the drums were recorded in a studio session where I was present. It was post-lockdown and the first time I’d been in a studio for a couple of years. It was great to interact in real time with musicians on the album.
Late Night Laments was very understated and consistently atmospheric and this time I was determined to create something which surprised both me and the prospective listener. The radical change in artwork also reflects how I feel Butterfly Mind is something different for me.
I really enjoyed exploring years in music through your podcast with Steven Wilson ‘The Album Years’. Was it conceived as a way to stay active in that period and is this a format you will continue exploring?
Yes and yes. Steven phoned me at the beginning of the first lockdown and asked if Id like to do a podcast with him. We knew that we wanted to give back to music what music had given to us. After a few discussions, the title and format emerged and it grew from there.
It’s done surprisingly well and has even reached people who don’t know anything about our musical work.
It’s been very sporadic over the last year due to recording and promotional commitments, but we’re hoping to resume it soon. We haven’t finished our investigation into 1978, so we left it dangling!
‘Dark Nevada Dreams’ seems to combine darker lyrics with music that underscores an element of positivity. Was it a conscious decision to pair these two emotions?
That bittersweet quality is something I’m frequently drawn to. I like contrasts between optimism and pessimism, beauty and ugliness, humour and tragedy, the primitive and the sophisticated etc etc. That’s reflected in both what I listen to and my own music.
Dark Nevada Dream is one of the few pieces on the album that does evoke things I’ve done in the past. I think it has something of the early 1990s No-Man about it. Part of that is because it features No-Man’s former violinist Ben Coleman – who I haven’t worked with in the studio for nearly 30 years – and part of it is in the piece’s combination of lush chords and ethereal textures contrasted with hard beats and unexpected instrumentation (the Hammond Organ played brilliantly by Dave Formula).
‘Butterfly Mind’ is underpinned by the outstanding rhythm section of Richard Jupp and Nick Beggs. Is it right that you have worked with Nick before but not Richard?
I’ve known Nick for a long time, but never worked with him. Nick came in because Steven Wilson recommended him. As talented as my usual bass players are – John Jowitt, Colin Edwin, David K Jones and Pete Morgan – I was keen for a different type of energy on this album. Steven thought that Nick could provide me with what I was looking for (and he did).
Richard came to me via shed envy! I’d seen a picture of his home studio and wanted it! I got in touch with him because I’d loved his playing with Elbow. It was sensitive and imaginative, but also very powerful when required. Luckily, he agreed (partly because his teenage son was a fan of some of the music I’ve been involved with and some of the musicians I’ve worked with).
I think both Rick and Nick brought something fresh to my music and a sense of coherence to Butterfly Mind. In return, I hope I provided them with an interesting context to work in.
The album also features a wide range of guests including Ian Anderson, Dave Formula and Peter Hammill. How do you decide who would be a good fit for a track and how much direction do you give them on what you are looking for?
It varies.
I get people in if I feel they can enhance the track. There’s no point in getting people in for the sake of it in the same way that there’s no point in releasing a song just for the sake of it. The musical world’s a very crowded place and you have to believe something’s worthy of its place in it.
Generally, people are given the track and some guidance. I then always say, ‘Do something that you think the piece needs as well’. What I end up using is usually a combination of both approaches.
As one example, I got Dave Formula involved due to the warped synth solo at the beginning of Only A Fool. It reminded me of his amazing work with Magazine (a band I loved), so I got in touch with him. I asked him to play synth solos and piano in a flamboyant style (which he did) and he added some really nice parts (organ and harpsichord synth) that he thought would enhance the song (they did!). I particularly loved Dave’s Hammond Organ contributions to Dark Nevada Dream and It’s Easier To Love (the latter I wanted as it presented an earthy contrast to the ethereal strings and treated saxophone).
You’ve been in music for 40 years now. Given the phrase ‘Always The Stranger’ derives from the name of your first solo project, how does that period influence you now and what are your reflections on that formative time?
I don’t have particular fond memories of the music I made or the period of history it was made in. It was the time of the Falklands War, Thatcher, Reagan and extreme poverty and unemployment in the North West of England where I was living and where I’m from. So, a little like a dry-run for 2022!!
The music was extremely bleak and dissonant, but looking it at positively it allowed me to learn about writing, get things out of my system, and understand what it was that I really wanted to do musically.
To a degree, the opening and closing pieces on Butterfly Mind – Say Your Goodbyes parts 1 and 2 – echo the paranoia of the music I made when I first started writing.
You’ve continued your collaboration with Brian Hulse who you originally worked with in the 1980s in Plenty but lost touch until recent years. How has that musical relationship developed since you started working together again?
We started working together again in 2017, around 30 years after the demise of Plenty. It was a New Year’s resolution made good! I’d always thought the songs I’d written with Plenty were amongst my best and I was keen to do them justice. Very early No-Man took some influence from Plenty’s ballad approach and even recorded a couple of the band’s songs.
The reunion album It Could Be Home was very energising and very instructive as it did show what had changed over the years. It was great to reconnect with Brian and David K Jones and finally fulfil the musical ambitions we had for the band’s music. The sessions led to myself and Brian writing some new songs together and that bled into Flowers At The Scene.
While I’m writing, I’m rarely thinking about how what I’m creating relates to my past work. Mostly, it’s emotionally driven music written in the moment (creativity’s a very instinctive process for me). That said, when I recently played Plenty’s Enough just before listening to a mix of Dark Nevada Dream, the differences felt more pronounced than I thought they would be.
Butterfly Mind consists of five pieces I brought in and seven songs I co-wrote with Brian. A couple of those I’d say are the best things we’ve written together (Dark Nevada Dream and Glitter Fades). That we’re still finding new things to say (or new ways to say the same things!) after forty years of knowing one another is really pleasing. Brian’s ability to grow and absorb new influences and methods of recording is undiminished.
Looking back over ‘Butterfly Mind’ are there any overarching lyrical themes?
Yes, I think it’s about ways of life dying (or being at an end) and an uncertain future emerging out of these endings. The working title for the album was Against Oblivion as a number of the songs seemed to be about people wanting to make a mark in this vast universe (whether through art, political protest or relationships). Happy! 🙂
How are preparations going for your forthcoming live dates? Who will you be playing with and what range of material will you be covering?
Due to the absence of EU gigs, this is very stripped-down. I’m working with two line-ups: A trio with the gifted pair of Matt Stevens and Peter Chilvers and a duo with Brian Hulse (he’ll be on guitar, synth and backing tapes).
The rehearsals have been pretty good so far. I like the control of working with the backing tapes and the freedom of playing with talented improvisers such as Matt and Peter. Contrasts!
Earlier this year you released a remixed and expanded version of you and Giancarlo Erra’s 2011 album ‘Warm Winter’ as ‘Memories Of Machines’. How was the process of revisiting that work for you?
It was enjoyable. The best part for me was re-recording the earliest piece we wrote together – Something Starts To Fade Away – and finally finishing an album outtake we’d left incomplete for 12 years. It felt like there’d been a progression over the years in terms of our understanding of space and feel.
Subsequent to this, we’ve worked on a radical interpretation of Pink Floyd’s Dogs, which has also been fun to do.
Going back to the earlier question about contrasts, Dogs is one of my favourite epics by one of my favourite bands and is a brilliant example of how Pink Floyd could be simultaneously elegantly symphonic and brutally intimate. Beyond the fantastic lyrical take down of corporate greed, the evocative keyboard textures and the stunning guitar solos, it also provides a wonderful showcase for the contrasting vocal styles of David Gilmour and Roger Waters.
Are there any other of your albums that you are interested in revisiting, and what are your plans for the rest of 2022?
I’d love to re-record Flame, the album I made with Richard Barbieri. Even at the time, I felt I could have sung the songs better and worked on the lyrics more. No-Man’s Flowermouth was written and recorded during the same period and I’m still very happy with it. Richard’s contribution was great, but I don’t feel mine was.
Ditto My Hotel Year, my first solo album. The players were all really good, but there’s something relentlessly downbeat about the album that I was dissatisfied with when I made it and now can’t connect with at all. The same year’s Never Trust The Way You Are with Centrozoon, I think was a lot more focused and interesting.
Beyond Dogs, I’ve written a song with Mark Tranmer (from the wonderful Montgolfier Brothers and GNAC) and I’ve been asked to collaborate with a few people. I’m still unsure of what to do at the moment, so new music isn’t on the agenda. A comprehensive No-Man reissue programme is though. Hopefully due out in early 2023.
Thank you Tim – another superb album.
Thanks Jason. Good to talk to you again.
Further information
- Butterfly Mind by Tim Bowness will be available as a Limited 2CD Edition (incl. alternative mixes and outtakes), as well as a Limited Edition 180g LP+CD featuring a striking die-cut artwork by Carl Glover. Burning Shed have an exclusive green vinyl edition, and you can pre-order now here: timbowness.lnk.to/ButterflyMind
- To celebrate the release of the new album, Tim will play some select UK live dates including:
- 10 June – Prohibition, Liverpool, UK
- 19 June – Chapter 22, Bath, UK
- 26 June – Chapter 22, Bath, UK
- Tim Bowness website
- Tim Bowness Strange Brew Podcasts: February 2019, November 2019
