After more than a decade embedded in Bristol’s ever-evolving music scene, multi-instrumentalist Tim Burden steps into the spotlight with his most exposed work yet. His new solo project, Late Stay Ultra Girls, trades collaboration for something rawer and deliberately unstable.
The debut single, ‘Like Washing Sieves’, sets the tone. Recorded with Stew Jackson, long associated with Massive Attack, the track thrives on tension: a towering synth hook over a wall of guitars gives way to brooding minimalism, before erupting into bursts of noise and melody. Burden’s wonky art-rock blends honky piano, motorik rhythms, and post-rock crescendos, ultimately landing somewhere between alt-rock and indie.
A relentless biting guitar line runs throughout, anchoring the track’s restless energy, while the lyrics veer between sharp observation and surreal imagery – “homeless hermit crabs” and “disappointed dads” inhabiting a world that feels both strange and emotionally grounded.
Burden explains: “There’s a real scuzz to the record which I love. Stew’s worked with Massive Attack for decades so it’s not exactly surprising that he’s got an ear for the darker textural side of things, but I fell in love with how he sculpted the whole track into this huge wall of noise. There’s a feedbacking guitar that starts about a minute in and doesn’t stop until the end, which has no right to sound as good as Stew managed to make it.” Continuing to talk about the track, Burden says: “I wrote the music to the chorus of Sieves when I was 15 years old on an out of tune piano that a family friend stole from Portishead Nautical School (now defunct) and delivered unannounced to my bemused parents. 15 years later I wrote the line ‘like a homeless hermit crab in a soup can bedding down, it seems you’ve got a rotten case of falling in love’. 6 months later I finished writing the song, 2 years later I recorded it and now here we are.
The song’s a hot mess to be honest. I think it’s about craving love and hating the idea of needing love. I think it’s about thinking love is really stupid and yet also being furious that you don’t get to be stupid with everyone else. There’s a girl in there I think, when is there not? Or maybe it’s just about crabs. I like crabs.”
‘Like Washing Sieves’ is the first in a run of singles planned throughout 2026, marking the start of a bold and deeply personal new chapter for Burden.
Listen below:
