“I think we met with his approval. If I find him haunting me, I’ll know I did something wrong”: Tim Smith left an unfinished Cardiacs album when he died. Five years on, his bandmates released the finished version of LSD

Cardiacs studio portrait — (Image credit: Ashley Jones)

Cardiacs leader Tim Smith spent the last 12 years of his life suffering from a crippling disease following a heart attack. He was too ill to do anything for the first five of those years, but after that his colleagues began working with him on LSD, the album they’d begun in 2007.

Smith died in 2020, but the work continued, and LSD was finally released in 2025 – by which time Tim’s brother Jim had become Cardiacs leader through a slow, organic process.

Work on the follow-up to Cardiaca’ 1999 abum Guns began when Tim Smith and guitarist Kavus Torabi hit the studio to begin assembling songs. Unbeknown to them both, events would soon conspire to stop LSD in its tracks.

“We’d got a bunch of songs that we wanted to do,” says Torabi. “Tim didn’t make demos, but what he did do was block out how the songs were going to go. At its most basic, it would be the most rudimentary programmed drums and some MIDI keyboards, maybe with him singing some guide vocals over the top. On some of them he put guide guitars and a bit of bass. That’s how it all started.”

Initial sessions were productive, with most of the recording being completed under Smith’s supervision. “I’d say that 85% of the guitars were done,” Torabi recalls. “Most of the live drums were also done then. But there were no vocals, except for the guide vocals you hear on the album. It was an instrumental thing, with Tim playing the bass, with keyboards and my guitar parts, and real drums. We had desk mixes, and that’s what we listened to for the next 12 years.”

“When Tim first got ill, for the first five years he was just fucked,” recalls Craig Fortnam, Cardiacs alumnus, founder member of North Sea Radio Orchestra and the man behind LSD’s extraordinary orchestral arrangements. “He was having to deal with being in almost constant pain. After about five years you could see him coming back into the world. One day I said, ‘Tim, let’s finish LSD’. It was just an idea to get him into the studio, to keep him going.”

“Craig was back and forth with Tim,” says Jim Smith. “He was showing him different arrangements that he’d written, getting the thumbs up or, ‘No, that isn’t right.’ Tim was due to come home, actually, the week after he died, which was quite ironic. His house had been kitted out with beds and easy-access lavs, but he dropped dead the week before, the silly arse.”

Tim died on July 21, 2020. Within weeks, a grieving Jim concluded it was time to step up and take the reins. One decision he clearly got right was the recruitment of a new vocalist. There are multiple voices on the album, including Rose-Ellen Kemp, who was originally mooted to be doing the entire album.

But the band soon realised that something additional was needed. Mike Vennart, formerly of Oceansize, had been a Cardiacs fan for three decades and a friend and associate of Tim. He didn’t persuading to step into the late frontman’s shoes.

“I’ve never responded to a text message so fast in my fucking life!” he says. “It came up, ‘From Jim Smith,’ and he said, ‘Hey fella, do you want to come down and try doing some vocals?’ I was like, ‘Yes!’ I nearly punched a hole in the phone. He was like, ‘Blimey, that was quick!’

Cardiacs in 1985, group portrait — Cardiacs with Tim Smith in 1985 (Image credit: Tony Stringer)

“It was weird because I knew they were working on it. They’d basically got it all done except for the vocals. By the time I got down there it had all these incredible, ornate orchestral arrangements. I couldn’t believe what they’d done. It was all signed off by Tim shortly before he died, so that was the icing on the cake.”

Jim recalls: “It all clicked when I asked Mike to come and sing. Suddenly it was, ‘Yes, this is it – this is proper now!’ That was a big moment. Rose-Ellen sang quite a lot as well, and she’s amazing. And we also used every scrap of Tim’s vocal that we could grab from his demos. We didn’t cover him up. He’s not tucked away, he’s up front on everything we could use him for.”

I did this two and a half years ago, so it’s been driving me insane. I’m no good at keeping secrets!
Mike Vennart

Cardiacs have some of the most devoted fans in the world, and also some of the most patient. LSD arrived on September 19, 2025 after an excruciating 18-year wait for new material. The response has been overwhelmingly positive, with the band’s newer recruits being fully embraced by the faithful.

“Most of the banter about this record, nobody’s talking about the vocals, which is exactly as it should be,” Vennart says. “Everyone’s just so enamoured to have Tim’s singular presence back in their lives. That’s what it’s like for me.

“But I did this two and a half years ago, so it’s been driving me insane. I’m no fucking good at keeping secrets! It was great to see people connecting with it at the listening parties. I’ve not heard anything negative – but they’re not going to tell me anyway, are they?”

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There’s no small degree of irony in the fact that LSD is attracting more attention and shifting more units than any previous Cardiacs album. Thanks in part to social media and the ongoing proliferation of independent music media, the buzz has far outweighed the meagre coverage they had to tolerate back when Smith was alive. More importantly, the album is a vivid, widescreen celebration of his unique brilliance, with a wonderfully rounded and vibrant production, and some of the most spellbinding music that the great man ever wrote.

From the austere beauty of Men In Bed and the skull-rattling, manic thrill of comeback single Woodeneye, to the synapse-mangling, punk-prog insanity of Skating and the exquisite intricacy of Busty Beez, the end product of all the painstaking hard work is a self-evident masterpiece worthy of Smith’s greatness. He would have loved it.

There’s so much material still floating around of Tim’s that hasn’t been used
Jim Smith

“I think what we did would meet with Tim’s approval,” says his brother. “I haven’t had any messages from him to say otherwise! If I suddenly find him haunting me, I’ll know I did something wrong!

“I never used to get involved with the recording of albums, but it’s been educational, emotional, and an eye-opener, to be honest, to see what’s involved in it all. It’s been an absolute joy to do it. I’ve learned so much.”

Now that Cardiacs have risen, phoenix-like, from the ashes, Jim says there’s more to do. “There’s so much material still floating around of Tim’s that hasn’t been used,” he notes. “Most of it is fucking brilliant, as you’d expect, but it just wasn’t pigeonholed for LSD, so there’s probably another couple of albums in it, if I live that long!”

LSD is on sale now via Alphabet Business Concern.

Artists

Dom Lawson began his inauspicious career as a music journalist in 1999. He wrote for Kerrang! for seven years, before moving to Metal Hammer and Prog Magazine in 2007. His primary interests are heavy metal, progressive rock, coffee, snooker and despair. He is politically homeless and has an excellent beard.

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