Biography
Tim Presley picked up the guitar at nine, little suspecting how circuitous his path through music would become. The West Coast player’s subsequent band affiliations proved consistently surprising yet consistently compelling. Early on he gravitated toward hardcore, most prominently with the Nerve Agents, a group that coalesced in 1998 and issued two albums—1998’s Days of the White Owl on Revelation and 2001’s The Butterfly Collection on Hellcat—before disbanding. After the split he launched the stylistically broader Darker My Love, whose country-rock-to-shoegaze palette shaped a neo-psychedelic trajectory documented on singles and albums, the majority appearing on Dangerbird Records. That outfit’s self-titled debut surfaced in 2006, its follow-up arrived in 2008, and Alive as You Are emerged in 2010. Presley’s commitments extended elsewhere as well; in 2006 he stepped into the Fall after the musicians supporting Mark E. Smith abandoned a U.S. tour. Alongside Darker My Love colleague Rob Barbato he completed the remaining dates and contributed to the Fall’s 2007 album Reformation Post T.L.C. Two years later he linked with Texas garage-rock outfit the Strange Boys, adding backing vocals to their 2010 Rough Trade release Be Brave.
Concurrently Presley began capturing his own four-track experiments in lo-fi, hallucinatory psychedelia. The initial public glimpse of White Fence materialized in 2010 as a self-titled LP on Make-a-Mess, comprising material taped between 2008 and 2009 and never intended for release; its reception prompted him to prioritize the project. The follow-up, White Fence Is Growing Faith, retained the woozy garage-psych approach and received wider distribution via Woodsist Records in 2011. That same year White Fence also issued the live cassette Live in LA on Teenage Teardrops and the single “Harness”/“The Pool” on Afterlife Records. An especially prolific stretch followed in 2012: a Drag City collaboration with Ty Segall titled Hair appeared first, succeeded by the expansive White Fence sets Family Perfume, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 on Woodsist. Presley additionally inaugurated his own imprint, Birth Records, debuting it with a release by Los Angeles songwriter Jessica Pratt. The next year White Fence moved to Castle Face Records for Cyclops Reap, a comparatively polished effort, and the live document Live in San Francisco, captured with his road band. Cleaner, mid-fidelity sonics exerted further pull, leading Presley to track the subsequent White Fence album at Ty Segall’s studio; drummer Nick Murray of the touring group participated, and the country-rock-tinged For the Recently Found Innocent emerged on Drag City in 2014.
Around the same period Presley and Cate Le Bon, both recent transplants to Los Angeles and mutual admirers, formed a friendship. She joined White Fence’s live lineup on guitar; the pair’s rapport quickly spurred a new collaboration. Recording as DRINKS, they produced the experimental, off-kilter psych-rock album Hermits on Holiday, issued in August 2015 on Birth Records. Presley simultaneously pursued a more electronic, avant-garde direction, releasing an album of synthesized music and sonic oddities under the alias w-x on Castle Face in November 2015. Continued work with Le Bon yielded the first album issued under Presley’s own name; she produced and arranged The WiNK, which Drag City released in September 2016 and which featured Warpaint drummer Stella Mozgawa.
Concurrently Presley began capturing his own four-track experiments in lo-fi, hallucinatory psychedelia. The initial public glimpse of White Fence materialized in 2010 as a self-titled LP on Make-a-Mess, comprising material taped between 2008 and 2009 and never intended for release; its reception prompted him to prioritize the project. The follow-up, White Fence Is Growing Faith, retained the woozy garage-psych approach and received wider distribution via Woodsist Records in 2011. That same year White Fence also issued the live cassette Live in LA on Teenage Teardrops and the single “Harness”/“The Pool” on Afterlife Records. An especially prolific stretch followed in 2012: a Drag City collaboration with Ty Segall titled Hair appeared first, succeeded by the expansive White Fence sets Family Perfume, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 on Woodsist. Presley additionally inaugurated his own imprint, Birth Records, debuting it with a release by Los Angeles songwriter Jessica Pratt. The next year White Fence moved to Castle Face Records for Cyclops Reap, a comparatively polished effort, and the live document Live in San Francisco, captured with his road band. Cleaner, mid-fidelity sonics exerted further pull, leading Presley to track the subsequent White Fence album at Ty Segall’s studio; drummer Nick Murray of the touring group participated, and the country-rock-tinged For the Recently Found Innocent emerged on Drag City in 2014.
Around the same period Presley and Cate Le Bon, both recent transplants to Los Angeles and mutual admirers, formed a friendship. She joined White Fence’s live lineup on guitar; the pair’s rapport quickly spurred a new collaboration. Recording as DRINKS, they produced the experimental, off-kilter psych-rock album Hermits on Holiday, issued in August 2015 on Birth Records. Presley simultaneously pursued a more electronic, avant-garde direction, releasing an album of synthesized music and sonic oddities under the alias w-x on Castle Face in November 2015. Continued work with Le Bon yielded the first album issued under Presley’s own name; she produced and arranged The WiNK, which Drag City released in September 2016 and which featured Warpaint drummer Stella Mozgawa.
Albums
Singles
