Tim Bowness - My Hotel Year
Tim Bowness is the curator of some very soul-searching and personal music. Deprecating and intense and displaying the hallmarks of other notable one-man acts like (‘The Fragile’-era) Nine Inch Nails and Custom, he’s a songsmith with a talent for subtlety, sweetness and communicating true feelings in audio vision. He paints pictures on the backs of your closed eyelids with brushstrokes of an acoustic guitar and wisps of his smooth, whispering voice. An artist proficient in the art of ‘making a mess in a clean place.’
The album flows through its eleven tracks in twenty minutes less than an hour, but retains an unflinching interest throughout by way of being so quiet, delicate and thoughtful that you dare not miss a thing. Haunting, engrossing and whole-hearted, memorable for the very real mood it creates. The warmth and love of the sounds made in the cold and isolation of loneliness. An empty, lifeless hotel room provides a suitable epithet.
‘Ian McShane’ is certainly a highlight, it’s not often that the actor who plays TV’s ‘Lovejoy’ is subject material for a song, but here he’s featured as the man to turn to in times of trouble- “Sit and watch Ian McShane.” The 75-second title track that precedes this, with its wandering synths and resigned words adds more to the unmistakable atmosphere of Bowness’s brainchild.
‘The Me I knew’ with some gorgeous piano and heavily present, slow bass is a contrast to the groove of ‘I Once Loved You’ yet each tune fits so neatly alongside one another, it gives this album an absolute sense of being a whole. This is a well-rounded, finished product worthy of time and praise, effortlessly enjoyable, an estranged classic.
Meaningful words, soothing music and a common demeanor that makes relation to this record and the trials and tribulations it alludes to so easy, gives ‘My Hotel Year’ a credibility that resides far above many other debut ventures. With lines like “thinking’s just a sucker’s game, leave’s us lazy, leaves us lame” and a soft, slow, flowing, thoughtful sound, that’s hard to find in our permanent-rush-hour society, Tim Bowness’s first outing finds itself among the best albums of the year. A surprise gem that pops up at the end of a year of brilliant records from big players but little in the way of strong and respectable new music. The best record of it’s kind since Custom’s ‘Fast.’
An ode to the comfort strangely found in existentialism, cynicism and numbing lethargy, not as blunt as Custom’s ‘120’ but rather, presented through a collection of melancholic melodies, lifting downers, sweet and sour songs that make up the small masterpiece that is ‘My Hotel Year.’