Review: Timber Timbre, Dark Roots Music

A sinkhole on the 417 may have swallowed a car this week, but the act known as Timber Timbre – albeit in stripped-down mode with just lead singer Taylor Kirk in attendence – went much deeper at the far corner of Folk Fest last night. Following Mirel Wagner's doom-laden blues on Thursday, Kirk's performance of heavy swampwater atmospherics was a perfect dovetail for fans of dark roots music. If this theme keeps up, the organizers will need to seriously think of changing the name of this stage from Tartan to Black Watch.

Kirk's Timber Timbre project began with two independently released LPs in 2006. At the time, Kirk's work was solo, and the Timber Timbre name references early recordings spawned late fall in a remote Bobcaygeon log cabin. “Songs Of The Wood” would be an appropriate alternative to the Timber Timbre name, were it a title not already owned by Mr. Frank Zappa, and tonight's solo performance – absent were multi-instrumentalists Mika Posen and Simon Trottier – was certainly a chance to take it back to the raw wood.

Disciples of Kirk's voice – it's rich, ponderous tonality comparable to a meditative Leonard Cohen trapped in the body of a demented Roy Orbison – will have been pleased by a song selection that went deep into Timber Timbre's earliest efforts. Newcomers to the band's sound may have wondered what all the hype around the Toronto based act was about, for Kirk's versions of his own work were slower and more experimental than the maximal sound the group is known for delivering. In any case, this set provided a rare occasion to hear an artist completely reinterpret his own works.

Songs “Bad Ritual,” “Magic Arrow,” “Lay Down In The Tall Grass,” and “Lonesome Hunter” provided a familiar beginning to the set (each song released on the most recent albums), but Kirk slowed the rhythm of each tune down to a barely registered beats-per-minute. “It's the last fest of the year,” he quipped mid-section, “and I've been looking forward to this night.”

One could easily read the musician's enjoyment as he launched into some unreleased material, before hooking up his mic to a four-track and sampling an admittedly unusual chorus of bird calls to introduce songs pulled from 2006's “Cedar Shakes” LP, and the rare-as-hen's-teeth 2008 EP, “Medicinals.” Timbre being one of the most important elements in bird song, many in the audience will likely have found their inner goose or zebra finch being channelled.

“It's not late/ it's only dark,” Kirk breathed into his penultimate tune, before the audience enthusiastically demanded his return. “Maybe I'll play “Pinball Wizard,” he joked amidst rain showers, but in the end it was the irony of the group's “Black Water” release that would have to take it home: “All I need is some sunshine” rang out as a fitting final chorus.             

- Cormac Rea