Tim Minchin Offers First Taste Of Debut Album

Tim Minchin has today released the first taste of his forthcoming debut album, slated for release later this year. 

The single, Leaving LA, muses on the comedian's departure from the US after a number of both successful and unsuccessful projects.

“Leaving LA was written in my final year living there,” Minchin said of the track. 

“It is meant to reflect the bitterness I felt when the project I had been working on for four years got trashed. But it’s also meant to feel a bit sad, and a bit funny, and a bit fond. It’s bittersweet; like a break-up song written for somebody you’re still a little in love with.

“The perceived glamour of Hollywood is laughable once you’ve lived inside it. Don’t get me wrong, there are brilliant people there making wonderful art, but it’s pretty damn ugly to look at, shamelessly materialistic - obviously - and full of desperate and desperately unhappy people. It’s also full of tourists leering at obscene houses, and frantically searching for a good spot from which to take a photo of an old real estate sign.

“I try my best to steer clear of cliches, but the famous sign felt to me like an unexploited metaphor: it, like the town it teeters above, is iconic, unique, two-dimensional. And, if you’re expecting glamour, a bit disappointing.”

The accompanying video, directed by artist and Minchin’s childhood friend Tee Ken Ng, utilised the historic zoetrope device to capture the artificial pretence of the song. 

“We both felt that paper construction was a fitting medium to depict a place of superficiality and facades,” Ng said. 

“All the frames of animation were captured from footage we shot across two days in Sydney of Tim and his band. Every frame had to be printed and cut out from paper and arranged and glued down in sequence around the circumference of the zoetrope discs… The lamppost zoetrope required over 100 individual lampposts and Tim singing in the car required 478 printed cutouts.”

Minchin added the film took "thousands of hours to make". 

“[It[ has become a project that not only enhances the song, but utterly transcends it," he said. 

"It is one of the most wonderful pieces of animation I have ever seen - and that’s coming from someone who was directing a $90 million animated feature film in fucking Hollywood for four years.”

Check out the clip above. For more updates about the album, keep an eye on theMusic.com.au.