Thighpaulsandra

Thighpaulsandra
Thighpaulsandra in concert with Spiritualized, 1998
Background information
Birth name	Tim Lewis
Origin	Wales
Genres	Electronic, ambient, industrial, space rock, dream pop, neo-psychedelia, drone, noise, glitch, experimental
Occupation(s)	Musician
Instruments	Piano, keyboards, vocals, guitar, bass, autoharp, violin, mellotron, synthesizer, french horn, harpsichord, accordion, theremin, sampler
Years active	early 80's-present
Labels	Eskaton
Associated acts	Coil Queen Elizabeth Spiritualized Julian Cope Sion Orgon Cyclobe Anal

Thighpaulsandra (Tim Lewis) is a Welsh experimental musician and multi-instrumentalist known mostly for performing on synthesizers and keyboards. As Tim Lewis, he began his career working with Julian Cope. A collaboration with Cope in 1993 followed, as the experimental duo Queen Elizabeth. This project completed just the two albums, Queen Elizabeth (ESP Records 1994) and Elizabeth Vagina (Head Heritage 1997), each containing extremely long spacey tracks of between 20–47 minutes in duration. In 1997, former Cope guitarist Mike Mooney invited Lewis to fill for the departing Kate Radley on a Spiritualized tour, where he remained until early 2008. In 1999 he also became a member of the experimental band Coil. He has subsequently released several solo albums.

Beginning his career in the early 1980s with the hair metal band Temper Temper, Lewis next became the house engineer and studio manager at Loco Studios near Newport. Living in S. Wales, Lewis was at first unable to capitalise on his real influences, such as krautrock and improvised electronic music. Eventually, his work with Julian Cope provided the right atmosphere, and Lewis was invited to contribute synthesizers to Cope's Def American albums Autogeddon and 20 Mothers. As Thighpaulsandra, Lewis has also produced and appeared on other records, such as 'Zero Beats Per Minute' by Anal (on Cope's KAK label 1995), RocketGoldStar, and 'Love Peace & Fuck' by Brain Donor (Impresario 2001)

In 1997, Thighpaulsandra joined the band Spiritualized for a US tour and survived the cuts to the band made shortly thereafter, his band mate Mike Mooney quitting to form Lupine Howl with bassist Sean Cook and drummer Damon Reece. Thighpaulsandra can be heard on the records Live at the Albert Hall, Let It Come Down, Amazing Grace and Songs in A&E. He also joined Coil the next year and performed on such albums as Astral Disaster, Musick to Play in the Dark Vol. 1 and Musick to Play in the Dark Vol. 2.