TIM BOWNESS - MY HOTEL YEAR - 2004

Evocative and intense, 'My Hotel Year' is the debut solo album from No-Man’s Tim Bowness, which marks Tim’s return to the One Little Indian label after a decade’s absence.

Primarily written and produced in association with No-Man collaborators David Picking and Stephen Bennett, the album’s 11 songs were written and recorded in England and Germany over an intensive six-month period. Legendary fuzz-bass innovator Hugh Hopper (Soft Machine/Robert Wyatt), Roger Eno, Michael Bearpark (Faultline), Peter Chilvers and Centrozoon's Markus Reuter, also make superb contributions.

Shifting from the observational ‘Last Years Tattoo’ and ‘Brave Dreams’ to the fractured groove of ‘I Once Loved You’, the ambient lull of the 75-second title track and the exquisite string-quartet languor of 'Sleepwalker', the album combines highly personal narrative song-writing with inventively eclectic arrangements and a stripped-down production approach.

Press Quotes

"Thus far the less celebrated half of No-Man, an art-rock act co-founded in 1987 with Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree, singer Tim Bowness is finally breaking out on his own. Bowness specialises in a serene, ambient and soothing strand of prog-rock and has already collaborated with King Crimson’s Robert Fripp, ex-Japan/current Porcupine Tree keyboardist Richard Barbieri and Roger Eno among many others. ‘My Hotel Year’ is a personal, eclectic and highly intimate solo debut. Though frail, pensive and inwardly focussed, the album has inexplicable commercial possibilities. Among its many highlights are ‘The Me I Knew’ (“Nothing’s clear/But blood and fear”, croons Tim over an emotion-charged, spidery piano backing), ‘I Once Loved You’ and the far less edgy ‘Ian McShane’." 8/10 Classic Rock

'One of the year's most original, personal and haunting records' (Martin Aston - The Times/MOJO)
http://www.onelittleshop.com