Timber Timbre

Led by Taylor Kirk, Timber Timbre fuses songwriting steeped in folk and blues traditions with haunting atmospheres that stretch from deliberately spare arrangements to sweeping, filmic productions. Early self-produced recordings by the singer, songwriter, and producer already suggested the resonant voice and vivid lyrical pictures that would fully emerge on the self-titled 2009 album, itself the first of multiple Polaris Prize nominees in Kirk’s native Canada. Across subsequent releases the group continually adjusted its sonic palette to match each record’s atmosphere, draping the murder ballads of the Juno-nominated 2011 album Creep On Creepin’ On in ’50s melodrama, threading classic R&B elements through the longing and heartbreak of 2014’s Hot Dreams, and amplifying the social critique of 2017’s Sincerely, Future Pollution via dystopian echoes of the 1980s. Upon the project’s return with 2023’s Lovage, Timber Timbre remained every bit as darkly magnetic.

Timber Timbre originated when Kirk, then employed as a maintenance worker in rural Ontario, began capturing songs shaped by biblical and spiritual sources on acoustic guitar and four-track. The name was taken from the timber-framed cabin that served as his residence; he issued the debut album Cedar Shakes himself in 2006. After relocating to Toronto, Kirk tracked the follow-up, Medicinals, inside his apartment, and Shuffling Feet Records brought it out the next year.

By the time the third album took shape, Timber Timbre had already broadened both its personnel and its instrumental reach. Issued in January 2009 on Out of This Spark, Timber Timbre incorporated strings, banjo, and a small vocal choir alongside Kirk’s brooding baritone and atmospheric compositions. The release garnered greater attention than prior efforts, landed on that year’s Polaris Prize longlist, and was later reissued by Arts & Crafts; it also marked the project’s first appearance on a national chart, climbing to number 69 in France. Following 2010 tour dates alongside Jónsi and the Low Anthem, Timber Timbre delivered its fourth album, April 2011’s Creep on Creepin’ On. Captured partly inside a converted church, the record framed Kirk’s introspective material with rich, occasionally theatrical production. Shortlisted for the 2011 Polaris Prize, it rose to number 20 on the Canadian Albums Chart, after which the band toured in support with Laura Marling and Feist.

Work on the next album began in 2013. Drawing on Kirk’s time spent in Los Angeles and Laurel Canyon, March 2014’s Hot Dreams was co-produced by Kirk and Simon Trottier at the Banff Centre and at Montreal’s Hotel2Tango. Vintage soul and country colors, along with additional electronics and saxophone from Colin Stetson, defined the set, which again reached the Polaris Prize shortlist and number 20 in Canada. Two years afterward Timber Timbre issued the largely acoustic mini-album I Am Coming to Paris as a limited cassette. The group then headed to Paris to cut April 2017’s Sincerely, Future Pollution, whose ’80s-styled synths and saxophone underscored commentary on the era’s cultural climate and carried it to number 94 on the Canadian Albums Chart. In 2019 the Dissociation Tapes EP appeared on cassette, receiving a wider digital release two years later.

Full Time Hobby reissued Cedar Shakes and Medicinals early in 2023. That October, Kirk—who had spent much of the intervening period producing other artists—re-emerged with Lovage. Joined by percussionist and drummer Adam Bradley Schreiber and producer, keyboardist, and vocalist Michael Dubue at Dubue’s Quebec studio, Kirk drew on the palettes of Leonard Cohen, Brian Wilson, Alice Coltrane, and Paolo Conte for Timber Timbre’s first full-length in six years.