
Avicii
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Avicii's New Posthumous Album 'TIM' Honors The Late Dance Music Hero
Today, June 6, TIM was released. It is the project that Tim Bergling aka Avicii left about two-thirds completed when he took his life last April, and arrives as a powerful tribute to the late dance music icon.
"I will never let go of music – I will continue to speak to my fans through it"#TimBergling 1989 – Forever pic.twitter.com/8SQADzzwT4
— Tim Bergling (@Avicii) June 6, 2019
Seeing as his music connected with so many young people, and his collaborators saw the GRAMMY-nominated producer at his happiest in years while working on the tracks, his family reached out to several of them to help complete the album. The LP is filled with powerful vocals, including on the moving Chris Martin-assisted "Heaven" and "SOS," which reunites "Wake Me Up" vocalist Aloe Blacc with Avicii for another epic collab.
Not long before the one year anniversary of his death on April 20, Avicii's family announced the Tim Bergling Foundation, a Sweden-based non-profit they set up in his honor that "will initially focus on supporting people and organizations working in the field of mental illness and suicide prevention." Shortly after, the announced TIM, for which a hundred percent of the proceeds from the album will go to the org.
"When someone close to you passes, the emptiness becomes a mission. He told me that this was the first time he'd enjoyed making music in years, so I had to make this as good as I possibly could to honour him and our friendship," Carl Falk, one of TIM's co-producers, told The Guardian.
Falk, who met Avicii back in 2010, completed "Ain't A Thing," "Bad Reputation" and "Fades Away" for TIM, which they had started together. "There was never an ego with him," he also told The Guardian. On "Bad Reputation," Falk sampled "Levels," as Avicii sometimes used the same technique, reusing bits of his older tracks in new songs. The steel-drum beat on the track was inspired by a song from Kaliffa, a Swedish rapper the late producer loved.
Vincent Pontare and Salem Al Fakir, who make up the Swedish songwriting/production duo Vargas and Lagola, are two of the other main co-producers on the album. They worked on "Piece of Mind," "Tough Love" and "Excuse Me Mr Sir" on TIM, all of which they co-wrote with Avicii prior to his death.
"Tim getting out of that bad place, exercising and meditating. He was strong. Everyone could see it," Al Fakir told the news outlet.
On "Tough Love," a duet which opens with an Arabic-inspired string arrangement, Vargos and Lagola spoke to Avicii's family and decided to not include any new vocalists on the track.
"The duo re-recorded their guide vocals from the demo with Pontare and his wife, the Swedish singer Agnes, to keep it as close to the last Bergling-approved version as possible," The Guardian explains.
"Even the interviews talking about the process are part of the therapy for us. [Avicii] loved these songs, and wanted them to come out. That's the sad part. He's not here, and I feel like he'd just started something," Al Fakir said.
Avicii's Family Establishes Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Foundation