Esoteric Recordings is pleased to announce the release of a new re-mastered 3CD and DVD clamshell boxed set anthology celebrating the career of celebrated synthesiser and electronic ambient music pioneer TIM BLAKE.
The Lion King proved to be one of Elton John's most successful projects – which is quite an achievement for one of the most successful rockers in history. Given its level of popularity, it's only logical that John would reteam with his Lion collaborator Tim Rice…
This anthology covers Tim Story's work between 1979 and 1986, serving up 18 pieces. Because there is no attempt to provide the pieces in chronological order (though the notes do indicate which album each piece comes from), there is no sense of Story's development as a composer - a later piece focusing on piano may well be followed by a more electronic piece. "Abridged" is a collection of small, floating still-life pieces, absorbing by dint of their lack of drama. Story's work draws the listener in, somehow capturing the attention by refusing to demand it - it's as easy to let the music fall into the background as to concentrate on it as a foreground element.
Produced by No-Man, Flowers At The Scene is a vibrant collection of 11 strikingly diverse songs. Against a backdrop of propulsive Art Rock, heartbreaking ballads and more, Tim Bowness distinctively delivers cinematic storytelling and disarmingly direct confessional lyrics on his strongest solo album to date. Representing the duo of Tim Bowness and Steven Wilson’s first joint production in over a decade, the album features stunning performances from an extraordinary cast of players including Peter Hammill, Andy Partridge (XTC), Kevin Godley (10cc), Colin Edwin, Jim Matheos (Fates Warning/OSI), David Longdon (Big Big Train), co-producer Brian Hulse (Plenty), Australian trumpeter Ian Dixon, and drummers Tom Atherton and Dylan Howe. The Curator, David K Jones, violinist Fran Broady and Charles Grimsdale also guest.
Tim Warfield, a big-toned, swaggering titan of the tenor saxophone, has decided to make his contribution to the jazz organ group tradition with One For Shirley. The lady of the title is Shirley Scott, the late queen of jazz organ, with whom Warfield often played in the 1990s, and this set pays tribute to her style of bop-laced soul-jazz. Warfield’s tenor (and soprano) is joined by Terrell Stafford’s trumpet and Pat Bianchi’s organ in a simmering, groove-heavy update of a Scott original as well as swing era and ‘60s pop classics-plus some nifty Warfield originals to put the icing on the cake.
This is the most important Tim Buckley release since Dream Letter, featuring a singular performance with a jazz-rock lineup that calls to mind Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks. Buckley, father of Jeff Buckley, made his mark with his Southern California folk-rock sound and four-octave vocal range. But this rich weave of accessible, warm, improvisational music reveals Buckley in a light never before captured on tape, including two newly discovered songs (“Blues, Love” and “The Lonely Life”), early drafts of Buckley classics, and a stunning cover of Fred Neil’s “Merry-Go-Round.” Recorded by the Grateful Dead’s legendary soundman Owsley “Bear” Stanley, the infamous LSD chemist, this is one of the treasures of his Sonic Journal archive. Buckley’s performance is incredible and Bear’s thumbprint on the sonics is part of the magic!
An expanded and remixed 10th Anniversary version of Tim Bowness and Giancarlo Erra’s 2011 album ‘Warm Winter’ (now issued as ‘Memories Of Machines’, the original project name).
Most well-known for his work in the duo No-Man, his long-running partnership with Steven Wilson (Porcupine Tree, Bass Communion), Englishman Tim Bowness established himself throughout the '90s as a singer and musician with an ear for passionate and passionately wry music. His variety and range of musical interests, similar in scope to Wilson's own various explorations, resulted in a series of bands and joint efforts with friends covering everything from experimental, cutting-edge dance music to torch songs and progressive rock.
Too many synth artists of the early to mid-'70s seemed more interested in demonstrating their dexterity with their instrument than actually showing why it was worth being dexterous with in the first place. The reason Tim Blake is important is because he took the opposite approach entirely. Schooled in Gong and soon to dignify Hawkwind, Blake is a composer first, a technician a very distant second. And if New Jerusalem, his solo debut, represents a peak which electronic rock in general has yet to top, Crystal Machine is at least equal to the task. In maintaining the earlier album's application of melody over mood, Blake totally separates himself from the ranks of sallow, clever souls who let their machines do all the talking – a lesson which, by year's end, both Jean Michel Jarre and Donna Summer's "I Feel Love" would both have translated into worldwide chart-toppers.