No-Man – Love You to Bits, Tim Bowness and Steven Wilson

No-man – Love You to Bits.

Tim Bowness and Steven Wilson

By Pete Clemons

On first listen I was immediately cast back to a time in the mid 1970s when, I was listening to styles of music, I would not admit to to some of my friends and peers. Although I suspect they knew.

Despite my love for progressive/underground music I did have a penchant for Chic, Donna Summer and others. And, on occasion, I didn't mind a visit to the disco.

'Love to you to Bits' was a totally surprising listen. But should it have been?. Via a video, promoting the album, Steven Wilson revealed that the roots of this release had been conceived some 25 years earlier.

This would have been around the time of the 'Flowermouth' album released during 1994. I was curious as to whether this was before or after 'Flowermouth'. So I took the liberty of asking vocalist, Tim Bowness, direct. He said:

'From memory, LYTB (the opening song section) was written in 1994 after the release of Flowermouth. At around the same time, we also wrote the beginning of what became Lighthouse. Both songs developed and changed over the years and the album of LYTB features a great deal that was written over the last year'.

Around a year after 'Flowermouth', and before the more hard edged 'Wild Opera', the band released a cassette (later a CD) called 'Flowermix'. This was a more dance/ambient oriented release. So the seeds of LYTB kind of fits to that time.

Moving away from the over-riding beat I was also curious to learn more about the lyrics. To me they seemed to be about some kind of romantic tragedy. But given the style of music I was also getting a vibe that the lyric might be about the death of disco itself. Tim also kindly enlightened me:

'Lyrically, the idea is to cover the aftermath of a relationship from the perspectives of both participants as well as the third perspective, which is the one they share (but can’t discuss with one another because communication has broken down). On the physical formats, the lyrics are colour coded so you know which voice is talking. My other hope was that I could capture the optimistic beginnings (thereby giving the piece more of a sense of light and shade). If it has a metaphorical aspect, in some ways it could also be read as a depiction of the creative death of a band,

Weirdly I did write a song about the death of disco called The Death Of Disco Dottie with Centrozoon in the early 2000s'.

Again, and away from the main theme, there are many incredible solo moments woven into it all including a particular delicate few minutes from a brass band. It all works together wonderfully well.

no-man are a pop art band. With no real boundaries. Expect the unexpected from them. Personally, I must say that this record is like a breath of fresh air. The story line is particularly engaging. I love it to bits.


With thanks to Tim and Steven.