Meditation inspired my new album says Charlatans frontman, Tim Burgess

The Charlatans burst onto the Britpop music scene in 1990 with "The Only One I Know" and became part of the heady Manchester scene at the height of the ecstasy years.

Twenty years on lead singer Tim Burgess's inspiration is not drugs and alcohol, but Transcendental Meditation. He learned the technique last year and told The San Francisco Examiner that it had given him a new clarity that had led straight into productivity, as he'd penned their new album, "Who We Touch" shortly afterwards.

"I do it twice a day now. And it's weird, I don’t get fazed by hardly anything anymore.

"I find it's really good for inspiration," he said in an interview with eMusic website. "I always knew about it from the Beatles and the Maharishi, and when I quit taking drugs and drinking five years ago I wanted to delve a little deeper into myself ...

"I've not missed one yet [20 minutes in the morning and evening]. Lou Reed started doing it before "Transformer" and I thought that's a great record; John Lennon wrote "Happiness is a Warm Gun" and "Across the Universe" — all his great records — on it.

"I'm a big fan of David Lynch too and I've always known he's done it for over 25 years. The first time I did it, I understood a lot of his films more."

Asked how Transcendental Meditation felt, he told eMusic,

"You know the very first chord of  "How Soon is Now" by The Smiths — it's kind of a tremolo effect? It's kind of that sensation, but inside your mind. It's a wobble and it goes deeper and deeper and I can only explain it as being cosmic consciousness. It's an incredible release of stress."

Burgess's fellow Britpop meditators include Martin Duffy, drummer of Primal Scream.

Read more at the San Francisco Examiner and eMusic websites.