Timber Timbre

Toronto, ON's Timber Timbre have written a lovely, haunting record with Medicinals that harkens back to the fundamentals of folk blues with tempered emotionality. Without the relative bombast of M. Ward or Patrick Watson, Taylor Kirk breathes into his songs with the charm of an old school troubadour whose airways are clouded. There's a milky, ambient atmosphere to each of the gentle ruminations here that gives them technical distance, a sound that messes with the temporality of Medicinals. It might purport to be some unknowable old world record but the give away is the contemporary pain within the lyricism and unconventional musical sensibility. "There is a Cure" is a slithering chain gang lament, with a ghostly multi-vocal moan sandwiching Kirk's vivid narrative. Along with "Like a Mountain," it also connects the earnest rural bent of Royal City with the post-rock stomp of Bruce Peninsula, and the doting Americana is fully realised on the cold, pulsing "Under Your Spell." The songs and arrangements on Medicinals all seem heartfelt, yet there's a coy reserve to Timber Timbre that renders romanticism with a charming self-consciousness.