After two shows opening for The Roots at the end of 2013, Urthboy fell off the map.

The same cannot be said for Tim Levinson though, the man behind the moniker, who kept up appearances as one of the heads of Elefant Traks and as a dutiful father. But even while he was scheduling record releases and changing nappies, Levinson was planning big things for the next Urthboy release – so big, in fact, that he began to worry that he had bitten off more than he could chew.

“The record started in this really grandiose, hugely conceptual sort of way,” he says. “The original idea I had wasn’t even an album – it was going to be a string of five EPs, with each one covering the course of a decade. On each EP, I was going to sample and utilise the sounds of each decade. I explored it. I did a copious amount of research and I had an endless pile of notes about things that happened in each decade. At the same time, I was struggling. I was suddenly trying to deal with new-found pressure on my time – my daughter, my work, my managing of other artists. As much time as I put into it, I felt like I was sinking into a quagmire of detail. Everything that I had compiled felt strictly academic. It lacked heart. It bored me.”

How then did Levinson turn himself around and write his fifth solo LP, The Past Beats Inside Me Like A Second Heartbeat? “Basically, I opened up,” he says. It was a new willingness to transgress the guidelines of the initial concept that set Levinson onto the right path. “I started writing freely, rather than [writing] academic or historically accurate songs. I was writing about the people in my life, I was writing about my family … the dam broke after that. I reached a point where I was finally able to compromise between what I had originally set out to do and where my writing had taken me. I wasn’t limiting myself anymore.”

The Past Beats, which takes its title from The Sea, a novel by Irish writer John Banville, is a substantive and diverse album – one that ranges from the sombre tone of ‘Long Loud Hours’ and ‘Hey Juanita’ to the defiant, energetic ‘Running Into The Flames’. This wide palette is complemented by the subject matter and the collaborators that worked with Levinson on the record, many of whom are women he admires and has learned a great deal from.

“I learn so much from a woman’s perspective,” he says. “My mother and my sister always held a huge influence over [me] growing up, and I like to bring that to raising my daughter, as well. It’s the same when it came to people I wanted to work with – I knew I had to have people on board that would help this record stand the test of time. Sampa is pretty clearly one of the best MCs in Australia at the moment. Okenyo is at the very start of what’s going to be a very exciting career. Jane Tyrrell is someone that I’ve always worked with.

“Bertie Blackman is someone who I have such a great affection for – you can only speak in superlatives about her any chance that you get. Caitlin Park makes these incredible records full of interesting pop music. Kira Puru is a diamond in the rough of Australian music. What more can you say about these women? They’re doing incredible things. They’re brilliant talents.”

Levinson also notes that working with people younger than him – such as Montaigne and upstart MC B Wise, who appears on the aforementioned ‘Running Into The Flames’ – allows him to get a new, fresh perspective on his own creative process. “They’re really great artists, and they’re really open to working towards making the song the best that it can be,” he says. “I’ve learned that it doesn’t matter how old you are or how young you are. It’s about coming to a track as equals. If you don’t treat young people with the respect that they deserve, then you’re missing out. There’s no simpler way to say it. You need to have people that reject previous generations in favour of their own evolution of ideas.”

Levinson has already launched the album at an intimate, stripped-back gig at Newtown Social Club, but the touring machine hasn’t slowed down for the man yet. Come mid-June he’ll be taking the show on the road again, a prospect he relishes.

“It’s been a while since I [have performed],” he says, a rush of nerves fluttering around his usually calm and controlled voice. “I feel like I’ve been backstage and side of stage for so long, just watching from the wings as acts like Hermitude and Horrorshow have just shined so brightly. There’s an undeniable element of performing your songs live that makes the process feel whole, in a way. You can write songs and get a great buzz from doing something you haven’t achieved before, but if you don’t perform those songs it feels like a real missing piece. It’s like you’re incomplete. I’m so excited about getting out there and performing songs that mean something to people.”

The Past Beats Inside Me Like A Second Heartbeat is out now through Elefant Traks/Inertia. Urthboy takes the Oxford Art Factorystage Friday June 17.

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