by
Rob Jones
‘Tim Burgess Presents Vinyl Adventures from Istanbul to San Francisco’ is an album to run alongside the publication of the follow up to the entertaining Telling Stories autobiography. On this exercise The Charlatans front man heads back through the aural annuls and he welds together an eclectic mix of eccentric Midas, entertaining mainstream and exceptional moments.
Tim heads out on his track travels as he responds to tune tips from a cast of characters such as Iggy Pop, Kim Gordon, Ian Rankin and The Vaccines. The leads followed celebrate the vinyl format and our man in the field certainly congregates an unlikely but entertaining group of groovers from more recent times to the distant past.
The Lancastrian lustre of Durutti Column instrumentation has Burgess taking the controls as he steers us on a journey that welcomes a plethora of passengers aboard this boat of beauty.
From the now of John Grant also correct and present are the 70’s/80’s sparked gold of The Modern Lovers, Joy Division, The Clash and Fad Gadget (with their respective and remarkable contributions presenting the highlights of this release). However, the clock heads back through sonic styles aplenty as the likes of Loudon Wainwright III, Love, Willie Nelson, George Jones & Tammy Wynette, Duane Eddy and Isao Tomita surface amongst the seamless sounds. We can ask as to how certain songs have a right to be on the same playing surface-but, in turn the collective raises the bar and a scintillating seventeen song set soars
Whether it is pop, country, ballad, electro, indie, avant-garde, rock ‘n’ roll or any other genre it appears that both the lyrical and musical entity of a song can be important to Tim. The contents can impose themselves as sweet melodies or leftfield adventures as non vocal or busy narrative entities. However, many tracks tell a multitude of tales and as one would expect Mr. Burgess pays homage to the ‘Telling Stories’ process.
Tim has of course resided in England and America with the influences of both nations plus their vast banks of beats having playing a significant role in his own output. You could imagine the celebrity DJ having a go at recording each and every one of these numbers because in the guises of his band, solo or collaborative work he can never be criticised for being a one trick pony. To add to which his history is littered with both quantity and quality when it comes to the construction of a melody.
