Nothing like the present: as well as announcing his new album today, Time Indefinite (April 25th via Psychic Hotline), Nashville-based guitarist/composer William Tyler has also shared three lead singles and videos. The logic behind this generous gesture, which will be welcomed by many, is that all three tracks form a suite of sorts: “Cabin Six,” “Concern,” and “Star of Hope.” There’s also quite a personal slant to the short films accompanying these pieces, as they were all compiled from Tyler’s old family home movies.
While six years may have elapsed since his Goes West album (reviewed here), and which Glenn Kimpton spoke to him in-depth about (here), he kept us entertained with the diverse and shifting set of songs on Lost Futures, a collaboration with Marisa Anderson, and his Hawkwind meets The Charlie Daniels Band Secret Stratosphere with The Impossible Truth.
The accompanying press for Time Indefinite shares how, in November 2020, on a family trip to Jackson, MS, to clean out his late grandfather’s office, Tyler spotted an old tape machine, still sealed among the flotsam. He took it back to Nashville to longtime friend and producer Jake Davis, and they began using it to create tape loops that conjured the vertiginous feeling of that unknown moment. Just as Daniel Bachman’s Almanac Behind shifted the tectonic plates we’d grown to know, Time Indefinite may well prove to be an equally powerful electrical storm as first samples demonstrate on Cabin Six – perfectly described as “harsh as Merzbow processing the sound of a washing machine”.
The folk waltz Concern suddenly smoothes the timeline.
The third piece “Star of Hope,” was born out of an acapella hymn Tyler heard on AM radio: “I’m always fascinated by the often random origin stories of ‘sacred melodies’- ie the melody of the star spangled banner being an old English drinking song,” he says.
For those wondering about the album name, Time Indefinite, it takes its title from one of the deeply personal films of Ross McElwee. “In the mid-’80s, McElwee began to make a movie about Sherman’s march through the South, but it spiraled into a tangled history about family, loss, and what we do when our best instincts surrender to the worst things we can imagine. It is no great revelation that the lives we lead shape the work we make, whether or not we intend that to be the case. In these songs, you can hear Tyler, like McElwee, wrestle with incoming demons out loud—addiction, middle age, loneliness, neurosis. All of our struggles are different, but we are united at least in having them. Time Indefinite is the soundtrack that Tyler creates.”
Pre-Order Time Indefinite: https://ffm.to/williamtyler
William Tyler Playbacks / Tour Dates
Wed. Mar. 5 – Brooklyn, NY @ Public Records (Album Hi-Fi playback & artist Q&A)
Wed. Mar. 12 – Los Angeles, CA @ In Sheep’s Clothing HQ (Album Hi-Fi playback & artist Q&A)
Wed. Mar. 26 – Knoxville, TN @ Big Ears Festival (Album Hi-Fi playback & artist Q&A)
Thu. Mar. 27 – Knoxville, TN @ Big Ears Festival (William Tyler performs Time Indefinite)
Wed. June 4 – London UK @ ICA