TIMBER TIMBRE (CA) + support: DINO BRANDÃO

Under the name Timber Timbre, Canadian musician Taylor Kirk (guitar, vocals) is accompanied by Mike Dubue (piano, synth, vocals) and Adam Bradley Schreiber (drums, percussion). Kirk, with his reputation as a preacher with a brooding voice, has been compared to Nick Cave or Johnny Cash. After six years, he released a new album, Lovage (out 6/10/2023), produced by his bandmate Michael Dubue. Kirk cites Brian Wilson's rich sonic palette and Leonard Cohen's contemplative melancholy as sources of inspiration, as well as, surprisingly, Sun Ra, Alice Coltrane and Italian singers Pino Daniele and Paolo Conte.

Support: DINO BRANDÃO

At the crossroads of Paris, Zürich and Luanda in Angola, lies the small Swiss town of Brugg, where Dino Brandão takes refuge in his bunker. The Swiss artist of Angolan origin summons his rich influences in a vibrant fusion blending continents and languages. Alone on stage, surrounded by his instruments and stomp boxes, the former street musician vacillates between sunny psychedelic melodies and melancholic folk tunes. Dino has an eye for baroque, ornamentation and old percussion, plays on foggy synthesizers, kicks his drum machine and blows the bugle.

Eighteen years have passed since the debut home recording of Cedar Shakes, whose songs were written, sung and recorded by Taylor Kirk over two days in July 2005 in a secluded wooden cabin in a wooded suburb in Ontario, Canada. The title of Kirk's project, Timber Timbre, can be translated as "the sound of wood" and refers specifically to this early series of recordings. In addition to the ghostly sounds of the countryside, crickets and Kirk's pounding on walls of wood can also be heard. 

Kirk moved from home recordings in a log cabin to an empty apartment in the city to recording studios. His current seventh album, Lovage, was recorded in a 170-year-old converted church in Quebec, Canada. Production was handled by Michael Dubue, who owns Studio Cimetière. The collaboration proved so fruitful that Dubue quickly joined the collective on tour as keyboardist and vocalist, while Detroit's Adam Bradley Schreiber rounded out the current lineup on drums and percussion. Kirk plays electric bass.

The title of the album (and song of the same name) Lovage - Love and Age - is meant to represent an unimaginably large amount of love in terms of weight, measure, volume or age. Kirk says of this, "I see it as a ridiculous notion and also probably my most common struggle and folly associated with how to love and how to love well. It has to do with the pursuit of not only romantic love, but relationships in general."

After an autumn European tour that included thirteen stops, mostly in major or capital cities in seven countries, Timber Timbre will return to Europe in the spring. This time they will be touring smaller cities and clubs. The fact that they will be stopping in Olomouc after Prague in the course of six months is both a surprise and a joy. The chamber environment suits this cult project. And it will be only the fourth concert in the Czech Republic in their eighteen years of existence. And who knows when they will return to our country. It will be a rare visit of the peculiar freak folk singer Taylor Kirk and his bandmates.

Live performance is different from the studio recordings. Selected songs get expressive and resonant in concert, they won't leave you breathless. The performances have a dense atmosphere, but in a positive sense. Kirk is focused on the action on stage, on the precise execution of the songs and on the individual band members. He's immersed in the bass playing. He plays it strongly and most of the time he seems to be struggling with it. There's very little time to breathe between songs. The band stops several times on one motif and stretches it out endlessly.

With his distinctive voice, reminiscent at times of Nick Cave or Johnny Cash, Kirk tells and sings stories like a detective story, sometimes stretching the listener to the breaking point. His mesmerizing voice and songs, like snippets from gothic or horror films, at other times conjure up images of live burials, burnings or electrocutions. Kirk draws the listener in during the first two songs and lets go before the encore. At that point, it's time to return to reality and hammer out the last two or three songs in a daze. 

When Kirk is really in a good mood and not distracted from the show by cameras and cell phones, or when he's in a frisky mood, he likes to do a second encore - that's when he picks up a guitar instead of a bass and sings a solo of one of his chamber songs. These moments are then the most precious and conclude an intense experience with even more concentration. Focusing on Kirk's unique voice. And if you've never experienced a concert where the frontman has asked for all the stage lights to be turned off, know that during these encores it can happen under special circumstances. And then there's nothing to distract you. All you hear is Taylor Kirk's voice and his guitar playing. That's all you need at that point.