Tim Hill 'Leviathan Whispers' Ltd.Ed. LP
January 2026
A very nice editon of 150 on recycled vinyl and randomly coloured 12" LPs by this talented player, who has worked with Jonathan Coleclough & Colin Potter many times. One of their collaborations is featured on this record.
From the label : Leviathan Whispers is an album of longings, laments, deleriums and drones, savage and sublime. Brass and woodwind instruments sing over and through autumnal netherlands, heralding ancient spirits. There are breaths, hums and bone songs for shadows and flames to dance to.
Tim Hill is an inspirational figure within the UK arts, jazz, noise and improv world. Since the 1980's he's operated as a shapeshitfing maverik, fearlessly exploring Britain's diverse musical traditions, from rough music to industrial folk, free jazz to dub, post-punk to avant-rock, incorporating electronics, hymn, noise and drone. Having worked with pioneering arts company Welfare State International, he's performed inside Stonehenge, on the back of trucks at Notting Hill Carnival, leading giants through the streets of London, Dublin and Galway, at Olympic Torch events, cooked celebratory feasts, written wassail songs, and led humanist funerals.
Tim presents a darker, more contemplative side to his work, featuring tracks created for art installations, outdoor processions, solo performances and personal meditations. Inspired by landscape and the eternal pull of Blake's Albion, baritone, alto and soprano saxophones are mixed with tape loops, synths, recycled live recordings, industrial percussion, woodwind and reeds.
Other sounds are processed by Colin Potter (Nurse With Wound) and drone artist Jonathan Coleclough. The artwork and accompanying videos feature sound sculptures by Michael Fairfax (Royal Society of Sculptors) alongside unsettling visuals by film-maker and junk-alchemist David Young.
Fans of Colin Stetson, John Surman, Anna Von Hausswolff, William Basinski and La Monte Young will find much to savour on this new 12" LP.
Review from The Wire magazine :
Saxophonist Tim Hills’ exploration of Englishness is overt rather than allusive, and deep to the point of ancestral. He has improvised in myriad combinations including with guitarist Mike Cooper and pianist Pat Thomas; with avant jazz rock ensemble Noise Eating Monsters; and in street processions and site-specific performances. On 'Leviathan Whispers', Hill creates a haunting sense of ritual through ‘breaths, hums and bone songs for shadows and flames to dance to’. These compositions are formed of Hills’ horns and loops, and sound design by Nurse With Wound collaborator Colin Potter. Some are set within a sonic drift but are too active to be ambient.
There’s an element of magic realism about the mood of ‘Around My Shed They Began To Sing’, as if his sax mantras are invoking strange presences and inviting them to join in. Hill conjures up a feeling of longing in the delicately turned multitracked phrases of ‘The Milk White Path’, which he plays with wonderful control. On ‘Twists And Turns’ his tenor sax cries out over ominous footfalls, and his baritone playing has a fabulous heft throughout, particularly in the guttural ululations and visceral blasts of ‘Beasts Everywhere’.
Mike Barnes
