“Not a bad crowd for a Sunday night,” were the words of Timber Timbre’s vocalist Taylor Kirk that echoed through the Rock and Roll Hotel for their weekend performance in the H Street neighborhood. Playing to a modest but very enthusiastic crowd, the band’s stop in DC marked their second in a series of twelve US tour dates.
Timber Timbre is the project of Taylor Kirk, Simon Trottier, Mike Posen, Mathieu Charbonneau, and Oliver Fairfield. The band’s “ragged blues” is a powerful mix of ever so charismatic vocals and haunting, yet airy guitar work. There’s a complex hint of a ghostly rock-a-billy thing haunting the band’s live performance and it comes off with a brilliant warm sound. The exquisite vocal work is punctuated by an ever so subtle organ fill and driven by this thump-and-go drum style that dynamically controls volume.
It’s as if Lou Reed’s ghost teamed up with a deeply dark and disturbed zombie version of Dick Dale—and you’d have Timber Timbre—and I mean this in the best possible way. In fact, the band takes the dark, moody ambience a step further with their dimly lit stage consisting of several mechanic’s drop lights that burn with hot red bulbs. Hanging at the back of the stage is a homemade neon sign buzzing the title of their latest album adding to their sense of the cinematic.
Touring to promote their fifth studio album, 2014’s Hot Dreams, the Canadian based Timber Timbre is relatively new to me and because it was my first time seeing them play live, I also got the feeling that I have been missing something really good.
There’s a feeling that any consistent show-goer experiences from time to time, almost like a moment of clarity—an instance when you have an amazing new band in front of you that you didn’t know much about beforehand—like you’re in the right place at the right time and you found something (or someone) new to love. Seeing is believing, and Timber Timbre surprised me in just this way.
If you too are not familiar with Timber Timbre, chances are you may have heard some of their work before unintentionally. The band has had a fair share of critical acclaim over the years and their song “Magic Arrow” has even been featured on the television show Breaking Bad.
It’s also a truly beautiful thing when you look around the room and almost everyone at the show is holding the 12-inch vinyl LP of the band’s latest release. It speaks volumes for the band’s efforts as performers and as songwriters.
The Toronto Based band, Fiver had the honors of being the night’s opener.
FIVER
