Tim Burgess - I Love The New Sky

Tim Burgess has become so ubiqitous of late, not least on here, where I'm drawing to the close of a long series dedicated to his taste and famous friends, that it's almost tiring, Lockdown has seen him hosting a series of much publicised listening parties and he has a new album I Love The New Sky just out to boot and it's so choc full with all the qualities that make him who he is, for better and for worse, that it's almost difficult to know where to start.

Burgess is almost a gift to the likes of me with a quirstless thirst for the new and exciting cultural ephemera as well as cherry picking the best of what has gone before. While his non-stop enthusiasm for all of this is in many respects admirable and infectious, you might also sometimes wish he'd give it a rest. There's something of the eternal adolescent about his relentless positivity and desire to cover all bases, this album could certainly do with some cosidered pruning, (it could lose the last two songs quite happily for starters), but then again that would not make it Burgess product.

So, while this is perfectly worthwhile stuff, it's also rather exhausting. I Love The New Sky is on the surface as inclusive as the man's Twitter parties, a set of twelve songs that speak to themselves as well as to their audience. The songs are faultlessly melodic and chirpy, in deep love with the wells they draw upon without particularly replenishing them. There's plenty of opportunity to trainspot the sources his magpie eyes lock on and pilfer from before moving on to yet another glittering prize his heart is set on.

Because this is the musical equivalent of the Vinyl Adventures book that I'm in the process of chronicling on here. You're in the company of someone intent on telling you about each and every record in his vast collection as well as namedropping each and every one of his famous friends and itemising ths backstory of their friendship. An inveterate list-maker and anecdote teller. Burgess's nearest equivalents are probably Bobby Gillespie and Cameron Crowe, both of whom have a tendency to do the same although in a rather less likable and more self-regarding manner.

This record is certainly likable, even when it strays into to the ridiculous, (as it does frequently if I'm honest). When Burgess performs a song about Warhol, so he can mention Liz Taylor for example, (because the deceased are on his list too), or when he asks you which your favourite Cure album is. He plumps for Pornography by the way, although he adds that it could be any one of three. This is a record with more than enough going for it that you may wish to return to. There are plenty of good songs on here. How often you'll want to listen to it all the way through is another matter. Because if you do, you're likely to need a long lie down by the time you get to the end of it.