Wow! Giancarlo Erra, of the Italian progressive band NoSound, is here to discuss the 10th Anniversary edition of Memories of Machines’ album – Warm Winter.
Thank you Giancarlo for taking the time to discuss this monumental event with us at ProgressiveRockCentral.com.
Memories of Machines’ Warm Winter was a collaboration project between Giancarlo Erra and Tim Bowness. That collaboration will continue with a follow – up album in the future!
The 10th Anniversary edition of Warm Winter will be released on the 25th of February, 2022, through Kscope Music.
The new release will feature contributions from Robert Fripp, Peter Hammill, Julianne Regan, Jim Matheos, Colin Edwin, Huxflux Nettermalm, Peter Chilvers, Aleksei Saks and members of Nosound and Tim Bowness’s live bands.
“Featuring a 2021 remix from the original tapes by Giancarlo Erra, this new edition emphasizes the textural nature of the music and restores the pieces to their original arrangements and track lengths, (resulting in a different listening experience)”.
Memories Of Machines – 10th Anniversary edition will include: 2 disc (CD/DVD), 2 LP and digital album. Available on CD/DVD-A/V – with hi-res stereo and 5.1 Surround mixes – and double vinyl, the reissue contains two 2020 recordings – an album outtake and a new version of the 2006 Nosound piece “Someone Starts To Fade Away” – created especially for this release.
The artwork has been enhanced by Giancarlo Erra and Caroline Traitler. Photography by Katherine Mager.
The releases come with postcard signed by Tim Bowness and Giancarlo Erra (whilst stocks last).
Thank you Tim Bowness for taking the time to discuss this monumental event with us at ProgressiveRockCentral.com
Tim was not available for the live interview, so he responded with his answers to the questions I sent him. Here is his response to the songs on the new release of Memories of Machines’ album, originally titled: Warm Winter:
Tim Bowness:
The album was written in three countries over a period of four years. It was a surprisingly episodic way of making something that sounds so coherent.
Someone Starts To Fade Away was the first piece we wrote together and, in terms of its mood, it set the template for a lot of what we subsequently did.
Schoolyard Ghosts was something I wrote for No-Man’s album of the same name. Working alongside Steven Wilson, the song evolved into the very different Mixtaped. I always liked the lyric and feel of SG, so it was nice to finally get the original demo released (with some Giancarlo enhancements).
Lost And Found In The Digital World was written to a Soundscape that Robert Fripp had sent me. Around 2005 or so, Robert kindly gave me around 60 minutes of Soundscapes that he thought I may find useful to make into songs.
I love the soaring chorus to Warm Winter, but my two favourite pieces on the album are Beautiful Songs You Should Know and At The Centre Of It All. Both were written and originally recorded in Manhattan – in 2006 – and both, for me, have a bittersweet sense of longing and sense of the musicians totally submitting to the feeling of the music. Marianne De Chastelaine’s cello playing is superb on both. Giancarlo and I wrote the pieces within a few days of one another and it was on completing those that we felt we had the basis of an album.
What is your feeling about another Memories of Machines’ album?
Tim Bowness:
Should the opportunity and inspiration arise, I’d definitely be up for it. We still get on well personally, plus Giancarlo and myself have also managed to write easily together. Given how the two 2020 recordings came out (the bonus tracks on the reissue), I think we’d be able to offer something different from the original MoM while retaining the spirit of the collaboration.
After this release what do you have planned for 2022?
Tim Bowness:
A fair bit. The main one is a new solo album. This is due out in mid-June on InsideOutMusic / Sony and I feel it’s one of the strongest things I’ve ever done. It’s certainly one of the most surprising. It features the largest and most diverse guest list of any of my releases.
The first streaming single – Always The Stranger – takes its name from my first solo project and will be released exactly 40 years to the month I started performing in bands as a teenager.
Hopefully, there’ll also be some No-Man archive releases this year as well.
Tim you are releasing Enough, a double CD collecting two 2021 Plenty (Tim Bowness, Brian Hulse and David K Jones) ‘lockdown’ projects, plus the first ever release of the band’s original 1980s demos. Please tell us about how special that release is to you.
Old is a mini-album containing seven contemporary interpretations of 1980s Plenty songs. Tom Atherton, Michael Bearpark, Peter Chilvers and Charles Grimsdale are guests. Please describe what inspired you to release this music.
Tim Bowness:
After I’d finished Late Night Laments, I felt emotionally exhausted. I didn’t want to write for the sake of writing as I felt I’d said all I wanted to say on LNL. I needed to build up experiences, feelings, ideas etc.
Along with Brian Hulse, I started re-recording old Plenty songs and unexpected cover songs as a means of keeping myself ‘fit’ in studio and singing terms.
We took a few Plenty songs that hadn’t made it on It Could Be Home and made them into what we thought they always should have been.
It was great fun and also enjoyable from a creative point of view (lyrics and arrangements were liberally played around with).
I still like It Could Be Home, but these recordings had a greater sense of immediacy and urgency.
Borrowed is an EP, comprising five covers, which sees the Plenty trio stamp its identity on songs by “It’s Immaterial”, Suzanne Vega (wherein despair takes a trip to the Euro Disco), “The Teardrop Explodes”, Kevin Coyne and Hank Williams (in what may be the most English slice of Americana ever!). Please tell us more about this EP.
Tim Bowness:
These were five covers we recorded around the same time as we were re-recording the old Plenty songs.
In the case of It’s Immaterial and Teardrop Explodes, these were bands – local to us – that we loved when we started Plenty. It was a conscious return to the original inspirations behind the band.
Kevin Coyne has been someone whose music I’ve loved for a long time. Brian suggested we cover the Suzanne Vega piece and I brought in the Country classic I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry (I like the Hank Williams original, but I love the Johnny Cash / Nick Cave version from 2003).
I hope that we brought something of ourselves to these wonderful songs.
Older features seven Plenty demos from 1986 to 1990 (several pieces include lyrical ideas later used by No-Man). Please tell us more about Older.
Tim Bowness:
This is the first time I’ve released any of my 1980s demos / recordings. While I can hear obvious flaws and approaches (especially lyrically and vocally) that I no longer use, I’m still proud of the material.
I thought Older provided a nice contrast to Old and gave a brutally honest representation of the beginnings of the band, plus an opportunity to assess what’s changed over the (many!) years between the recordings.
Tim Bowness, thank you for participating in this interview. I thank you and Giancarlo for taking the time to answer these questions, and wish you both continued success in the future!