Irish singer/songwriter Tim Chadwick soars on his eponymous ‘Timothy’ EP, an intimate and impassioned outpouring of self-reflection, empowerment, reckoning, and acceptance.
Stream: “Favourite Song” – Tim Chadwick
There’s a huge difference between being alone and loneliness; these songs explore what it means to be uncomfortably comfortable with yourself.
Tim Chadwick’s self-titled EP may be only twenty minutes long, but it seems to somehow last a lifetime. The Irish singer/songwriter soars on his eponymous Timothy EP, an intimate and impassioned outpouring of self-reflection, empowerment, reckoning, and acceptance. It’s a journey that finds the artist coming into fool bloom as he finds his voice in a buoyant indie pop space full of smoldering sonics and bright swells full of visceral emotion.
Released March 12, 2021, Timothy marks an incredibly evocative return for Dublin-based Tim Chadwick. Arriving on the heels of a string of song releases that began last September, Timothy is Chadwick’s first EP since 2017’s Early Days, which helped Chadwick find mainstream success at home that radiated around the UK. In premiering Chadwick’s 2018 standalone single “Weakness” – released via major label Sony Ireland – Atwood Magazine praised the artist for creating a “helpless submission to love”: “Tim Chadwick’s euphoric ‘Weakness’ embraces intimate vulnerability as the risk we must take for a far greater reward.”
“Timothy marks the ending of a relationship, and the beginning of a new more self-aware and caring relationship with oneself,” Tim Chadwick tells Atwood Magazine. “It is dedicated to self love and self discovery. There’s a huge difference between being alone and loneliness; these songs explore what it means to be uncomfortably comfortable with yourself.”
“Timothy is my birth certificate name,” he adds. “It was the name I was called up until I was a teenager. It went from Timothy, to Timmy, to Tim. I suddenly found myself in my 20s, an adult, single and unsure of who I was. Names have such a power, now more than ever, especially when it comes to identity. They reflect who we choose to be. The EP goes through the ugly but beautiful challenge of looking at yourself in the mirror and being okay with what you see; the good and the bad. The EP ends with the glimmer of new beginnings yet it’s tinged with a hesitancy of starting over. I wanted the EP to have a cyclical sensation to it. The idea that perhaps we will fall in and out of love with ourselves and others all our lives, each time learning something new and shedding away something old.”
Since debuting in the mid-2010s, the singer/songwriter has established himself as one of Ireland’s brightest up-and-comers, and that career hits a new milestone with Timothy‘s release. It’s not merely a coming-of-age; it’s a rediscovery.
“I feel like it truly is a reintroduction,” Chadwick affirms. “My first EP was a folk singer-songwriter styled body of work. I have always wanted to create a record like this. It feels like me. In the last year, my songs have been coined ‘sad bangers’ and I feel like that is very appropriate. The production is light, but the lyrics are heavy hitting. I find myself dancing to them when I know that a lot of them stemmed from tougher moments in my life. That is what I want my art to do for people; help them move through those more uncomfortable feelings, rather than ignore them or wallow in them.
Chadwick approached this EP with a bit of a mission: “The vision was to create a record that maintained singer songwriting elements with incorporated pop production. I feel like myself and Seán Behan (producer/friend) kept that mantra to the forefront from day one and I feel we withheld that. I also wanted to know myself better and I came out of the process feeling new and much lighter.”
Timothy truly is a big pop record, its depth and nuanced bolstered by gorgeous melodies reminiscent of such superstars as Carly Rae Jepsen and Lorde. Opener “Favourite Song” kicks things off with a wellspring of jubilant energy and poignant, confessional lyricism. “I painted pictures of us back at the start,” he sings, immersed in waves of nostalgia. “Pretty pictures don’t mean that it’s art. Looking in at the two of us, I think I lost myself – became someone else…“
The record continues its stirring foray into the self with “Only Me,” a groovy slow-burning track whose pulsing bass work, glistening synths, and thick wall of vocal harmonies shimmer as they convey waves of heartfelt sentiment. “Right now, I’m loving ‘Only Me’ and In ‘Another Life,’ Chadwick says of the record’s songs. “I really look forward to being able to bring them to a live show setting. I also am putting it out into the universe, manifesting if you will, of having ‘In Another Life’ make an appearance (even if it is literally only a 5 seconds instrumental) in the Call Me By Your Name sequel. Any sync people out there, hit me up!”
All told, Timothy is a truly magnificent release. Every song resonates with its own breathtaking beauty – and each track takes us deep into the mind of Tim Chadwick, who grew considerably throughout the making of this EP
“I hope listeners come away knowing me a bit better, both as an artist and as a person,” he says. “I certainly did. I also hope they look forward to coming to a live show when the world is in a much safer place.”
If pop albums like Grouplove’s Healer and Dua Lipa‘s Future Nostalgia helped us get through March 2020, then perhaps this Tim Chadwick’s Timothy can get us through March 2021 and beyond. A set of five effervescent upheavals, Timothy mindfully and gracefully captures a series of reckonings we can all relate to, whether we want to or not. As a result, it’s as special a record for its creator as it is for those who take the time to listen.
Experience the full record via our below stream, and peek inside the Timothy EP with Atwood Magazine as Tim Chadwick goes track-by-track through the music and lyrics of his latest record!
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:: stream/purchase Timothy here ::
Stream: ‘Timothy’ – Tim Chadwick
:: Inside Timothy ::
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Favourite Song
This opening track was written 24 hours into my writing trip to LA in late 2019, with my good friend Bill Maybury. I had just ended a long-term relationship and jumped on a flight across the world. One of the first songs that came on my Spotify while I was there was a particular song that I had loved and one that I used to sing to my ex. A sudden wave of anger but also grief washed over me and I realised that it was no longer mine. I had to skip the song and didn’t really think anything else of it. Low and behold, it came out at my first writing session and the song was born. I finished it later on when I was back in Dublin and had time to reflect a bit more. It really boils down to something as simple as losing a part of yourself when you go all in on a relationship and it doesn’t work out.
Only Me:
This track became my sort of mantra throughout early 2020 and at the beginning of the pandemic. I had the words, “well, now I’m all that I’ve got…” repeating in my head. It felt like the world was ending there for a minute, and I had come to the realisation that I hadn’t really sat with myself in what seemed like forever. Only Me acts as the cornerstone of the EP because it addresses my desire to fall back in love with myself and to figure out who I was without someone else beside me. It’s that battle of finding comfort in the discomfort. I found myself at a crossroads where the past didn’t make sense anymore and the future was too uncertain, so I only had myself and the now. I think I also longed for a song that empowered men to not have to write about breakups as the stereotypical “they did this, so I hate them” or “I want you back” or “I messed up” – so my aim was to try and empower myself.
Search Party
This third track was written days before lockdown struck (little did I know how weirdly prophetic the lyric “so I just stay at home” would become). I had been struggling with the feeling that somewhere along the way, I had missed the boat; the boat being “life”. It was around the time where friends were buying houses or getting engaged and making some real adult life plans and I just began questioning whether this was the life I wanted. All I had to my name were my songs. Literally. I appreciated that ownership but I battled with the idea of whether they were enough to make me feel successful or achieved in the metaphorical “Game of Life”. Adult life just seemed to become this party that I hadn’t been invited to and I felt instantly transported back to my teenage years. The track also delves into my own bad habits of not looking after myself and henceforth, feeling pretty miserable and down in the dumps about…well, everything. It really should be renamed Pity Party, to be honest.
If I Gotta Run:
IIGR had been in the back of my mind for a while before even knowing it would make the EP. I had written it back in early 2019 with two friends of mine, Stephanie Rainey and Gary Keane. The idea was sparked from the story I was telling them about the first time I had ever set foot in a gay bar. I explained how I felt this unnerving sense of loneliness and anxiety being there. I think it had something to do with my own insecurities with my sexuality. I told them that my fight or flight kicked into overdrive that night and I had to leave the club. I honestly left feeling like there was something wrong with me, that I somehow was a broken gay man who doesn’t like gay bars. Now, I think I was just overwhelmed. The song lay dormant for the rest of the year until I revisited it or rather, it revisited me. I was now single and unsure on what to do with that freedom. The track fundamentally deals with the anxiety of new things and the affirmation that if you feel you need to run, you can and you should. There’s power in leaving when you know you can’t give people what they want or when it doesn’t serve you.
In Another Life:
The final track of the EP is my attempt at dipping the toes in the waters of new beginnings, albeit extremely hesitantly. I’m learning that the world works in mysterious ways and I think you are only given things that you are ready for, so the track explains how a relationship was taken away before it had even begun, and probably for the best. It plays with the idea of unrequited love, but not in the sense of the other person not feeling the same, rather just that the world wasn’t on the same page as you. Like I’ve said earlier, I wanted the EP to feel cyclical. I wanted to explore the idea that perhaps we will fall in and out of love with ourselves and others throughout our lives, each time learning something new and shedding away something old.
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