Albums and EPs
Departure Lounge Transmeridian
Produced by Peter Miles and Departure Lounge.
Released on vinyl only by Violette Records, 26th March 2021
Tracklisting:
1. Antelope Winnebago Club
2. Australia
3. Timber
4. Harvest Mood
5. Mercury In Retrograde
6. Al Aire Libre
7. Gurnard Pines
8. Mr. Friendly
9. Paging Marco Polo
10. Frédéric’s Ghost
11. Don’t Be Afraid
12. Flying Home
13. So Long
“Reconnecting with their dreamy acoustic-electronica sound, the baker’s dozen of new tracks include highlights such as the sweeping, cinematic single Mercury in Retrograde, the jangly, stomping Australia and the psychedelia-meets-campfire sing-a-long Mr. Friendly. The vocal-based songs are interspersed with exotica-tinged instrumentals like Harvest Mood, Paging Marco Polo and Al Aire Libre, which serve as appealing palate cleansers and all sound ready-made for film soundtracks.” (Bill Demain, American Songwriter)
London, 2019 (photo by Anthony Oudot)
Our debut album turned 20 years old in 2019 and we wanted to mark this anniversary in some way. None of our catalogue had been available on digital platforms before, so we put that right with digital reissues of Too Late To Die Young and Jetlag Dreams and a 23-track deluxe edition of Out Of Here with B-sides, remixes and bonus tracks, and planned a couple of concerts in the UK in September.
While this was all coming together we got a call from Fiona Glyn-Jones, friend of the band and our old label manager at Bella Union, asking if we wanted to do a publishing deal with Showpony. There was a small advance involved and we decided the most fitting thing to do with that money would be to spend it on a few days in a nice studio. So the day after the third and final epic reunion show at The Lexington in London, making full use of Lindsay’s extended visit from his home in Nashville, we jumped in Chris’ car and headed south-west for four days of getting it together in the country at Peter Miles’ beautiful Middle Farm Studios on a remote farm outside Newton Abbot in Devon.
Pete had set the live room up as he thought we might like it, in such a way that we could all play together with no barriers between us and with a plethora of vintage pianos, keyboards, drums and guitars within easy reach. After breakfast on the first morning we started playing and we didn’t stop until some time early the next morning. Most of what you hear on the album was recorded during this 24-hour session, including the sounds of Pete setting up microphones around us and occasionally walking into the room to make an adjustment here and there.
We hadn’t expected to make an album - we came to the studio with one finished song and two ideas for songs. Apart from an unrehearsed bar gig in Worthing in 2015 we hadn’t played together for seventeen years, so we didn’t really know what would happen. As it turned out we just picked up where we left off. The music poured out of us and it felt very easy and natural.
As we listened back to what we had recorded the morning after our marathon session we realised that we had enough good material for a whole L.P. Managing to resist the strong temptation to just keep on making up new stuff, there remained only the small matter of wading through what we had done to try to make some sort of sense of it. This is where Pete came into his own, wielding the editing tools like a demon, until a reasonably coherent version of each piece began to materialise. We spent the next day and night listening, overdubbing, eating some very fine home-cooked food, writing lyrics, singing and leaping around the live room (with Jake’s kids recording handclaps on Mr Friendly); we listened to early mixes of poet laureate Simon Armitage’s band Lyr's extraordinary debut album, which was being made in a neighbouring outbuilding, and had a visit from local pal Nick Hannan, who engineered our previous album, Too Late To Die Young, way back in 2001 and had introduced us to Middle Farm, selling it as the spiritual sister studio to Blah Street, his old place on a farm in Hampshire.
Pete mixed as we overdubbed and when it came time to say our very happy and appreciative goodbyes, the album was in the bag, pretty much as you hear it in its final form today (he mastered it as well). There was one significant addition, however: we’d written and recorded a song in the studio which we called Australia. While listening the next day, I noticed the track had a Peter Buck-shaped hole in it. The great man said he’d be only too happy to play on it and if you listen, it couldn’t be anyone else.
We’re extremely proud of our fourth album and thrilled that Violette Records released it on delicious, high quality vinyl with a gorgeous sleeve (designed by Pascal Blua). For us, Transmeridian constitutes the perfect blend of all that is good about what happens when the four of us get together to make music.
Middle Farm, Newton Abbott, UK 2019 (l to r: Lindsay, Tim, Peter Miles, Chris, Jake)
Departure Lounge Too Late To Die Young
Produced by Kid Loco, engineered by Nick Hannan
Released on CD only by Bella Union (UK), Nettwerk (US), Naive (France and Spain)
UK release date: 4 March 2002
Tracklisting:
1 Straight Line to the Kerb
2. What You Have Is Good
3. King Kong Frown
4. I Love You
5. Alone Again And
6. Tubular Belgians in My Goldfield
7. Be Good to Yourself
8. Over the Side
9. Coke & Flakes
10. Silverline
11. Animals on My Mind (Intro)
12. Animals on My Mind
“Departure Lounge are possibly one of the music industry’s best kept secrets. (Their) fine debut album, Out Of Here was a perfect exercise in flawless, affecting songwriting. (Its follow-up) will probably be one of the most musically varied albums of 2002. Going on merit, Too Late To Die Young should establish Departure Lounge as one of the major acts of the year. Buy it now, and feel smug if they ever do get the success they deserve.” (John Murphy, Music OMH)
“Producer Kid Loco clearly based his treatments on what the songs required, rather than going out of his way to leave his mark. The album is warm, thick and lush, but firmly rooted in the guitar pop tradition. The x-factor is the songwriting, which turns out to be first rate. opener Straight Line to the Kerb is such a killer song. Starting with a cloud of fluffy electronic noise, the tune turns into melancholy British guitar pop equal to the finest XTC, complete with the kind of trumpet that adds that extra layer of sadness to certain Belle & Sebastian songs.” (Mark Richardson, Pitchfork)
“Too Late to Die Young is some of the most wonderful, eclectic, optimistic pop music being created at the moment. Let's just say that the Lounge approach the majesty of Doves and Elbow, but without being so bloody miserable.” (Mark Edwards, The Sunday Times)
"A top to bottom masterwork… Among the best English pop created in a decade" (Magnet)
Seattle, 2000 (photo by Charles Peterson)
Departure Lounge Jetlag Dreams
Produced by Marc Chevalier and Departure Lounge
Released on CD by Bella Union (UK), Naïve (France, Spain), Instinct (US), 11th September 2001.
Re-issued on limited edition clear vinyl by Bella Union (UK) for Record Store Day, April 2016
Tracklisting:
1. Equestrian Skydiving
2. Runaway Doubts
3. Too Late To Die Young
4. A Strange Descent
5. Purple Fluffy Haze
6. Beyond The Beltway
7. Charles de Gaulle To Belleville
“In just one album - Out Of Here, armed with the untouchable The New You - Departure Lounge effortlessly became Bella Union’s best band. While waiting for a second LP even better than its illustrious predecessor, Departure Lounge delivers the fourth volume of Series 7 from Robin Guthrie and Simon Raymonde’s label. In seven instrumental pieces, each more heady and polished than the last, the quartet has created the ideal counterpart to the recent and lascivious Kill Your Darlings by Belleville's finest export (Kid Loco). By the band's own admission, Jetlag Dreams is “the slow soundtrack to an imagined documentary about a transatlantic journey.” Keegan and his crew, perfectly at ease with wordless music, never cease to leave us speechless." 4/5 (Franck Vergeade, Magic, Revue Pop Moderne, France)
“I stumbled upon this LP by accident the other day. From the first notes you feel like you're on a journey in a gliding train with Hans-Joachim Roedelius, Moebius, Alva Noto, Arvo Pärt and Brian Eno.” (Choose-A-Username, Discogs)
USA, 2000 (Photo by Chris Guiver)
Jetlag Dreams is a collection of seven mostly piano-led instrumentals recorded in Nashville over seven days in 2001. It was commissioned by Simon Raymonde as part of Bella Union's Series 7. We conceived it as a sort of concept album documenting the imagined emotional upheavals of a troubled transatlantic passenger. The live tracks were recorded in Hum Depot, a now-defunct studio in an old wooden house supposedly haunted by the ghost of a confederate soldier. It contained a very nice piano and several organs among a plethora of dusty old instruments, several of which we used. The album was produced, engineered and mixed by Marc Chevalier, who became a fifth member of the band for the duration of the process and completed mixing in his apartment. The original CD version came out on Bella Union in the UK and Instinct in the US on September 11th 2001. Our show in New York the following day was obviously cancelled. A limited edition clear vinyl version with new artwork was released by Bella Union for Record Store Day in April 2016.
Departure Lounge Out Of Here
Produced by Steve Lovell, Pete Jones, Marc Waterman, Wolsey White.
Released on CD only by Meek Giant (UK), 7th June 1999
Tracklisting:
1. Music For Pleasure
2. The New You
3. Slow News Day
4. Disconnected
5. Win Them Back
6. Save Me From Happiness
7. Postcard From A Friend
8. Johnny A
9. Stay On The Line
10. (We've Got) Everything We Need
11. 1911999
Out Of There (EP)
Released on CD only by Bella Union (UK), 2000
Tracklisting:
1. el intro
2. The New You (Simon Raymonde remix)
3. Starport
4. Disconnected (Kid Loco remix)
5. Late Night Drive
6. Johnny A (Simon Raymonde remix)
7. los exitos
Out Of There
Released on CD only by Flydaddy (US), 2000
Tracklisting:
1. el intro
2. Music For Pleasure
3. The New You (Simon Raymonde remix)
4. Slow News Day
5. Starport
6. Johnny A (Simon Raymonde remix)
7. Stay On The Line
8. Late Night Drive
9. Disconnected (Kid Loco remix)
10. They Don’t Know
11. 1911999
12. los exitos
“Casebook studies in flawless songwriting. This is great pop music, unadorned by spin, resolutely free of pretence” (Stevie Chick, NME)
“Combines an understanding of the songwriter’s art and a love of cracking tunes. An album to return to again and again” (Music Week)
"some of the most wonderful, eclectic, optimistic pop music being created at the moment" (Mark Edwards, Sunday Times - Album of the Week)
Out of Here is an amazing sleeper of an album that reveals its charms on first listen and grows more vital with each listen thereafter. (Allmusic UK)
“A rare treat” (Laura Lee Davies, Time Out)
Our self-released debut album, Out Of Here, featuring the original line-up (Chris Anderson, Lindsay Jamieson, Tim Keegan and Jake Kyle) was released in the UK under the name Tim Keegan & Departure Lounge on June 7th 1999 on Meek Giant Records.
The album features special guests Simon Raymonde (Cocteau Twins, Lost Horizons) - guitar and vocals on Music For Pleasure and The New You; Robyn Hitchcock - guitar on Postcard From A Friend; Daron Robinson (Drugstore) - guitar on several tracks; Lisa O’Neill (Sing Sing) - vocals on Music For Pleasure and Tim Walker (Glen Campbell, Jimmy Webb, Pete Yorn) - pedal steel. Wolsey White played flamenco guitar on instrumental album closer, 1911999.
Out of Here was produced by Marc Waterman (Ride, Elastica, Ash), Lovell and Jones (Julian Cope, Morrissey) and Wolsey White (Hard-Fi). It was recorded over the period of a year or so at Bad Earth Studio in The Fortress in London, St. Mary’s Church in Brighton, Gran Turismo in Staines, September Sound in Twickenham and Wiggy’s studio in Chiswick, all in the UK.
Out Of Here includes the singles Disconnected and Save Me From Happiness, which came out in 1998 on London-based label The Blue Rose Record Company (home to Neutral Milk Hotel and The Olivia Tremor Control) with sleeve photos of Tim by legendary music photographer Tom Sheehan taken in Andalucia, Spain. Tom also took the promotional photos for the album, where the band can be seen posing in front of the stage at the iconic Crystal Palace Bowl. The front and back cover photos for Out Of Here were taken by Lindsay. The inner sleeve features a live photo of the band by Elizabeth Hack and band member portraits from the shoot of the video for Save Me From Happiness, which was never released.
The accompanying Out Of There EP includes remixes of Disconnected by Kid Loco and album track Johnny A by Simon Raymonde, the latter featuring future pop superstar Sophie Ellis-Bextor on backing vocals. It also includes instrumentals Late Night Drive with John Mark Painter (of Fleming and John) on guitar and Starport. In the US, Out Of There, a slightly different version of the album, was released by Flydaddy Records of Providence, Rhode Island in 2000. Flydaddy didn’t want to duplicate any of the tracks which they had already released on Tim’s Long Distance Information mini-album the previous year, so for the US release these were replaced by the previously unreleased tracks from the UK Out Of There EP, with the addition of a low-key cover of Kirsty MacColl’s They Don’t Know.
The band spent quite a lot of time in the US in 1999 and 2000, including on tour supporting and accompanying Robyn Hitchcock nationwide and also on the east coast opening for newly-reunited Robert Forster and Grant McLennan of the Go-Betweens, who we joined onstage to sing Streets Of Your Town at the end of their set. We played several shows at SXSW in Austin, Texas in March 2000 and headlined at Fez in New York, as well as performing at a Nick Drake tribute concert there curated by NY fanzine, Chickfactor.
The New You was used in Edward Burns’ 2001 film starring Heather Graham and Stanley Tucci, Sidewalks of New York.
In the UK we did our own small headline shows in and around London, and opened for Neutral Milk Hotel, Richard Davies and Robyn Hitchcock. In Australia, the album came out under the name Departure Lounge on W Minc, the label owned by Graham Lee (The Triffids) and Steve Miller (The Moodists). Disconnected received a lot of airplay out there on national public alternative radio Triple J.
Crystal Palace Park, 1999 (Photo by Tom Sheehan)