There’s been a long tradition of musicians from the north of England honouring their origins through their recordings – one that dates back as far as The Beatles’ penning ‘Penny Lane’.
‘North Country Boy’, ‘Hit The North’, ‘Life In A ‘Northern Town’, ‘The North At Its Heights’, ‘It’s Grim Up North’ – just a few of the dozens that, over the following years, have championed its mass.
Both culturally and creatively, the North tends to form more than the average core of an artist’s identity. It’s derived from a strong sense of pride in one’s place — not just its achievements, but in its character, humour, and resilience. Up north, ‘grey’ isn’t seen as bleak, but as honest and real: a backdrop that has shaped an unpretentious outlook on all things ‘life’. It engenders a sense of working through adversity, and through that, producing something vital, expressive and, well, frankly … elevated.
Now, through his third album dispatch, ‘Waking Up In A Northern Town’, singer, songwriter and BBMAK vocalist, Christian Burns makes his own mark in this grand practice.
It could be argued that Burns actually began this process with the release of his last artist album in 2021. ‘Love Songs From Suburbia’s title and singles already played with the theme to a degree. There’s a distinct dichotomy between the two albums’ relationship though, as Christian goes onto explain …
“Love Songs From Suburbia’ was written during one of the lowest points of my life.. ‘Waking Up In A Northern Town’ however was actually created during one of the best. It came at a time when I’d moved to the States and met and married my now-wife. This album, well … there’s a lot of hope on here. ‘Love Songs’ was more like a plea for it. This is the one where it actually happens.”
As Christian points out though, “no one wants to hear an LP made up of twelve happy-clappy songs! That’s not real life.” So, in title and lyric, time and again over its vanguard singles, he’s cannily subverted or swerved the issue. The album embarks with ‘Darker Days’, and case-in-point, against its title type, optimism is never far from its surface. Likewise, his title-with-a-twist recent single, ‘Strangers’ counterbalances the more overtly elevating likes of ‘Fall To You’ or the trust-the-moment message of ‘I Will Follow’.
“I’d say ‘Waking Up In A Northern Town’ is definitely a continuation of ‘Love Song’s’ direction… If it were a movie, he jokes. “you could probably get away with calling it ‘Suburbia 2’. I look at them more as an interrelated body of work though, especially when it comes to the telling of some of the ebbs and flows of my life. Many of the experiences happened to me while I was ‘waking up’ in a ‘northern town’. Though I’m now based in the States, the north’s importance to me will never fade.”
Feeding into that are the visuals that accompany the album. From ‘the backbone of the north’ – the M62 carriageways which carve their way across its cover, ‘Northern Town’s imagery chimes one-to-one with its sonics. Christian says, “the music videos for the singles were all shot in and around (my hometown of) Wigan, and the artwork is all pictures I took there. Walking down old pathways I used to take when I was a kid, past my old school; in the woods where I used to walk the dog, when I was going through bad times. These are all places I revisited for ‘Northern Town’, which in turn was cycled back into the music evolving around it.”
Across its singles sway, Christian worked with a number of luminary co-producers – Cosmic Gate, Pretty Pink, Paul Thomas and Little Foot among them. There was one however who left an impression more broadly across its album canvas. Says Christian, “I initially contacted Banaati (of Monstercat fame) to work on the track that became ‘Embers’. His own flavour and sound translated brilliantly, and I loved the amount of space that he brought to it.”
In him, Christian had discovered a stylistic likemind and Benjamin’s backings prove to be a masterclass in transcendent space, knowing as much when to elementally delay or subtract, as to add. That develops an overarching atmosphere for ‘Waking Up In A Northern Town’, that appears to wrap itself around the listener, and one you’ll ever more find yourself leaning into.
Christian’s third album brings the north at its heights to the world at large. You can find ‘Waking Up In A Northern Town’ through all good sales and streaming channels from June 19 [blackhole.lnk.to/northerntown].
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‘Waking Up In A Northern Town’ by Christian Burns Tracklist:
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01. Darker Days
02. Let Me Love You (with Mark Novas)
03. Brave (with Cosmic Gate)
04. Embers (with Banaati)
05. Strangers
06. Fall To You (with Pretty Pink)
07. The Two Of Us (with Paul Thomas)
08. Undiscovered
09. I Will Follow (with Little Foot)
10. Diamond Dreams
11. Like A King
12. Won’t You Hurry
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