TIM BURGESS AND PETER GORDON
The Charlatans voice and the ex-Arthur Russell collaborator reveal all about their joint LP. “It’s kind of like chess moves,” confides Tim.
The Charlatans’ voice and Arthur Russell foil join forces on a mission into avant-pop.
With its releases from Bruce Springsteen, Wreckless Eric and more, Record Store Day 2014 brought many black plastic treasures. Another was Tim Burgess’s single Oh Men/I Couldn’t Say It To Your Face, on which he worked with composer Peter Gordon, collaborator with late Zen-disco polymath Arthur Russell. “I was a big admirer of Peter’s from when I first heard [his cerebral New York club outfit] the Love Of Life Orchestra,” says Burgess. “It was the most cutting-edge dancefloor music around at the time… I always daydream about working with people I really admire, and in some cases the chance to make a record becomes a reality.” It took air miles and crossed time zones to make a joint album happen. Work on Same Language, Different Worlds began almost three years ago. Aside from The Charlatans’ stop-offs in New York and a mastering session in London, they worked apart, Gordon at his home studio (first in New Rochelle, later in Manhattan, on analogue and digital synths and saxophones) and Burgess in his base in Cheshire. “I think of this album as a correspondence,” says Gordon, “a series of letters… when we were into the final mixes, I’d send Tim an MP3 after a late session, and he’d receive it over breakfast.” “I’ve never felt that [distance] hinders working with
“I ALWAYS DAYDREAM ABOUT WORKING WITH PEOPLE I REALLY ADMIRE.” Tim Burgess
someone,” says Burgess. “It’s kind of like chess moves. I sent [Peter] ideas recorded on acoustic guitar – he played with my voice and took cues from the words and sent ideas back. His natural habitat is much more avant-garde, maybe mine is more orthodox – that’s where we complemented each other.” The songs merge melodious electric/acoustic pop with dance beats and echoes of Russell’s playful enigmas, as in Like I Already Do’s beatific upwards motion, Ocean Terminus’s watery reverie and the abstract spaces of the nine-minute Unguarded. Burgess’s partner Nik Colk Void adds “vocal treatments and field recordings”; former Russell players like trombonist Peter Zummo, percussionist Mustafa Ahmed and bassist Ernie Brooks, and Love Of Life Orchestra’s Larry Saltzman (guitar) and Bill Ruyle (drums) – also contribute. Gordon posits there’s more to the record than paying tribute to Russell, however. “If anything, I see it as really an homage to love and the loved ones in our lives,” he says. “I also thought a lot about Robert Ashley and Lou Reed, both who passed away over the course of the recording. And at times I thought about Brian Wilson, or Miles Davis, or Max Roach… [though] Tim does remind me of Arthur in his openness and the transparency, and in the honesty in his voice and songs.” They’ll be playing live in the UK September, but will they make more music? “I certainly hope so,” says Gordon. “How could we not?” Ian Harrison