Timber Timbre: Toronto transplants creep into our hearts with occult-inspired album

The rerelease of Timber Timbre’s 2009 self-titled album on label Arts & Crafts brought an unexpected spotlight onto singer and songwriter Taylor Kirk. His low, reverberant vocals, minimalist yet catchy arrangements and the songs’ haunting, esoteric atmosphere resonated strongly, earning them a long-list nomination for the 2009 Polaris Prize. 

Their new effort, Creep On Creepin’ On, is a polished, masterful incarnation of their enigmatic aesthetic. Inviting local talent including Mathieu Charbonneau of The Luyas and saxophonist Colin Stetson to contribute, Timber Timbre recorded the album with Grammy award-winning recording engineer Mark Lawson at Petite Église – Arcade Fire’s converted church where Lawson worked with them on The Suburbs – as well as at the Treatment Room with Kees Dekker.

“Recording with Mark was a dream,” Taylor said. “Mark and Kees were both very savvy and clever with modern recording tools, but also seemed to have a lot of ideas about less common techniques of mic‘ing, re-amping, tape manipulations, etc. We had a pretty clear idea what we were after and both Mark and Kees were very intuitive about how to achieve these results.”

Kirk’s vocals were tracked using the same tape-delay method Elvis Presley used, lending that peculiar echo to his sonorous voice. The rich yet languorous instrumental arrangements conjure influences from Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, and the album’s three instrumental tracks, with the hovering presence of spectral-sounding violin arrangements, evoke the scores of old-school horror films.

“Taylor is a huge fan of Bernard Herman, the composer who wrote the music for Hitchcock’s films, so we were trying to play with string dissonance and things like that,” said bandmember Simon Trottier. “We asked Mika [Posen, bandmember] to play a few notes on the violin and we recorded every note separately and put those notes on a keyboard, then we sent the sound through the keyboard and guitar amps and then through a tape delay. We wanted to imitate the sound of a melotron, this old instrument from the ‘70s.”

Sounds of the Occult
Haunting as their music is, Creep On Creepin’ On isn’t about doom and gloom – the songs embody the sort of sense of humour one needs going into a haunted house.

“It may not seem like it but there was a real feeling of exuberance and lightheartedness behind this collection of songs,” Taylor said. “Thematically it’s still quite dark, but a little bit self-ironic. Maybe even a bit tongue-in-cheek.”

The songs playfully revel in the occult and all things Halloween: Kirk croons in “Bad Ritual” of levitating chairs and conjuring poltergeists, and after a potent prelude of climbing violins reminiscent of Funeral, “Lonesome Hunter” speaks of zombies and breaking love spells. The cross on the mountain also makes a lyrical cameo in homage to our city, to which Taylor relocated just over a year ago.

“Montreal I’ve always loved and wanted to try as home. It’s a really inspiring place – the community and scene here feels really strong, really open and inviting. Things move very easily in this city and people were really keen to help.”

Timber Timbre
April 16^th | Theatre Corona
2490, Notre-Dame O.
with Snowblink
timbertimbre.com