tim bowness & peter chilvers - post-its

I simply don't have the words, at the moment, to write in full about how Tim Bowness and Peter Chilvers' music is so very important to me. The wonderful reissue of their 2002 album California, Norfolk (in a superb two CD package together with the second album Overstrand), accounts for a very large proportion of my music listening time over the past couple of years. And their song "Post-Its" is the most played song on my iPod by quite some distance.

 

This is music that I keep returning to. And, although I find it easy to waffle on about other music I like, I find it incredibly hard to explain quite what Bowness and Chilvers' music does to me. But it's become a part of me over the past few years - I find it oddly comforting and reassuring in a way that a lot of music isn't. The sentiments expressed, the emotions contained within each song, they seem to speak to me on some incredibly deep level. The music is almost always absolutely gorgeous - Chilvers is apparently incapable of writing anything other than really pretty music, and his lightness of touch means that none of these songs become ponderous or heavy, despite the sometimes desperately sad subject matter. In his lyrics and singing, Tim Bowness somehow seems to be able to articulate my own feelings. Without really understanding how or why, these songs have become utterly vital to me.

 

I will try to get around to writing about these incredible records in more details one day, but for now I will try to understand a bit about the song "Post Its". 

 

California, Norfolk was first issued in 2002 and the following year the companion album Overstrand was released, which was mainly comprised of alternate versions of some of the California, Norfolk songs, plus reworkings of a few other Bowness / Chilvers tracks. Although I adore the original album it's the reworked songs that have become the ones I return to more than any others. The original version of "Post Its" has a charming, slightly lopsided rhythm track and generally brighter outlook. The Overstrand version is dominated by Chilvers's keyboard, an all encompassing organ swirl that spirals from speaker to speaker throughout the track. Gradually other instruments are filtered in - gentle piano, some bass notes, a snippet of the orchestral swells from the original, but mostly it's the organ. It gives the song a mood of regret, of longing, which fits the lyrics perfectly.

 

Tim Bowness' words fit the music perfectly too, both in the actual lyrics and in Tim's brilliantly performed vocals. His voice is warm, intimate, so beautifully recorded that it feels like he's right in front of you.

 

The song itself shifts between the beginning and the end of a relationship. The opening line "on a day not meant for smiling, you made me smile" is so delightful, you can actually feel the promise and hope and optimism. 

 

The second verse is stunningly good at sketching in the first feelings of love, when anything and everything is possible - it's all so innocently romantic and full of anticipation and desire.... "we spent a lifetime devising plans to spend the night, we spent a night-time devising plans to waste our lives..." 

 

But then... "we spent forever, just testing ways to twist the knife..."

Rather than the carefree couple happily wasting their lives together, the mood has soured, horribly, suddenly, shockingly and Tim's voice is weighed down with dejected hopelessness.

 

As a sudden slap in the face it's as dramatic and as effective as the change in Talk Talk's "I Don't Believe In You" - another song which charts the failure of a relationship. There's a stunningly harsh moment where Mark Hollis switches from the repeated refrain of "I don't believe you" to "I don't believe in you" which signifies the final end, the complete breakdown of trust.

 

The choruses of "Post Its" contain far more in the way of sadness and resigned hurt, rather than the muted anger that is momentarily raised in the "twist the knife" line. All that youthful expectation from earlier has been overtaken by disappointment and dejection. As with so many Tim Bowness lyrics he's again found a way of making the mundane and everyday come alive with feeling, charged with emotion and melancholy. Something as ordinary as post it notes stuck to the wall have charted the whole relationship and their removal marks the final end - "And the post-its on the wall, that have marked our rise and fall, come down..."

 

Is this the final end though? There is perhaps a glimmer of hope offered by the closing part of the song as the chorus lines are repeated and overlaid with the opening lines - "on a day not meant for smiling, you made me smile" - is this juxtaposition an indication that maybe a new love has been found? Or is it merely sorrow, wistfully mourning for the loss of something that began so promisingly but which has ended in grief.

 

Whatever, it's a beautiful song. Sad, yes, but not depressing or maudlin. And in every play I can hear something new. This really is some of the best music I have ever heard.

 

 

peter chilvers / sandra o'neill

One of my most played albums of the past year or so has been Far Off Country.

Credited to Letka, this is basically the duo of Peter Chilvers and Sandra O'Neill, who've worked together for some years. Quite why the duo decided on the name Letka is something of a mystery, as it makes them sound as if they are an Eastern European pop star. They’ve previously collaborated on a couple of albums under the name of Alias Grace (which sounds like it ought to be a quietly pretentious 4AD band).

 

This stuff is sadly hard to find – and only seems to be available via the Burning Shed mail order company set up by Tim Bowness, Pete Morgan and Peter Chilvers - 

https://www.burningshed.com/ 

This is definitely the best label / record company in the world. Everything they release is well worth a listen.

 

Anyway, Far Off Country is just wonderful.

The whole album has a vaguely This Mortal Coil air about it – the fact that most of the songs are covers adds to this feeling - think of “My Father” or “Tarantula” from Filigree and Shadow and you’re sort of getting there. It's melancholy, but never sad, wistful not depressing. Country music classics like "Banks Of The Ohio" and "Country Roads" are stripped back to delicate keyboards and bare bones arrangements, but it's Sandra O'Neill's gorgeous voice that dominates. The purity and beauty of her vocals are simply stop-you-in-your-tracks astonishing. Interestingly, despite these classic American songs, the album really doesn't sound American at all. Yet somehow it still conjures up images of wide open plains, mountains, streams and deserts, but seen though a haze, half remembered, it has an almost dreamlike quality – it does indeed inhabit a Far Off Country – the title is absolutely apt. 

 

Letka's cover of "Not A Job" (originally by the resolutely un-American Elbow) is breathtaking. Chilvers' gently pulsing keyboards and O'Neill's stunning overlapping vocals make this arguably the highlight of the album.

The final track is a blissed out take on Gillian Welch’s “I Dream A Highway” which is astoundingly good. Long, dreamy, full of regret and longing. Brian Eno loved it so much that he suggested a whole new genre needed to be invented for it - Future Country. And Eno himself was involved on the gorgeous opening song “Beyond The Fold”. The lulling sway of the melody is very Enoid, the backing vocals are a gentle choir of multiple Brians and the mood is a bit like very relaxed “Spinning Away”. A truly brilliant song.

 

This is an album that has been played and replayed over and over and I love it more each time.

 

 

Alias Grace, Peter and Sandra's earlier collaboration, created two albums.

 

The first was Embers in 1998 and while it's simpler and less expansive than Far Off Country it is no less delightful. It's about as gentle an album as it's possible to be. Vaguely folky, sort of ambient pop, lovely piano work, gorgeously pure vocals, bitter sweet lyrics. It's a very pretty album, and I mean this in the most appreciative way.

 

I love all sorts of music - yesterday I listened to a cracking 1981 gig by Bauhaus which was harsh, snotty and angry - and I loved it. But I find an awful lot of modern music to be coarse and ugly. Most modern pop chunders along on a bed of lumpen beats and unimaginative synths; it's all the same, nothing terribly innovative, and it sounds just thrown together.

 

But this, Embers, by Alias Grace, has a genuine beauty about it. It's been carefully hand crafted and it's lovely, delicate, and very very pretty. And I love it. Clearly a lot of care has been taken in creating this music. The opening "Talk Simple" is a reworking of no-man's "Tulip" and it's wonderful. Over an insistent pulse Sandra O'Neill's vocals just soar. "I need somebody to hold my hand, I need somebody who understands" - can't argue with that! Other highlights include the terribly sad "Cry Sweet Child" which seems to outline the breakdown of a relationship in a manner that hits home in a very subtle way, there's a loneliness at the heart of this song which is terribly affecting. "Counting The Stars" is another favourite of mine, more upbeat with a lovely tumbling chorus. Chilvers piano playing, on this song, and on the whole album, is exemplary, perfectly framing the songs.

The second record, 2001's Storm Blue Evening, is basically more of the same, but with a few more instruments, and what sounds like a bigger production budget. It sounds like it might have been recorded in a studio rather than someone's house. These are albums made for the sheer love of it, not because they were going to have a hit or anything (though many of the songs are distinctly catchy and in a fairer world they really ought to be huge successes). One such is Storm Blue Evening's "Nightshift" which is a terrific piece, or perhaps the opening "Feel The Hush". 

 

But in reality I suppose these records are too good for the charts, too delightful, too delicate - simply beautiful songs, beautifully played and sung.

 

There is one more track that I need to mention - on a Burning Shed sampler you can find Alias Grace's cover of Kate Bush’s “Under The Ivy” which is just stunning and achieves the very rare feat of beating Kate Bush at her own game. This has always been one of my favourite Kate tracks, but hearing Sandra O'Neill sing it is actually even better. Heartbreakingly good.

 

I simply can't recommend this music highly enough.