Timber Timbre Haunts Church at Halifax Pop Explosion

Posted on Oct 25th 2009 2:30PM by Jonathan Dekel
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On its own, Taylor Kirk's voice is one of the most evocative in modern music. Hoarse and eerie, it haunts the swampy echo-drenched blues that has become the hallmark of the small-town Ontario singer aptly known as Timber Timbre.

Put in the context of a church as stunning as St. Matthew's United -- and given the chance to reverberate around a sonically sound hall which has been a cornerstone of Halifax for 260 years -- it transcends into a musical plea for the soul of its creator.

Bathed in the dimmest of red lights so as to almost obscure the faces of Kirk and his violin and slide guitar accompanists, Timber Timbre contrasted the sinful wallops of cacophonous, reverb-saturated musical bursts with Kirk's piercing telecaster stabs and bluesy vocal appeals for absolution.

Keeping between-song banter to a minimum during his Halifax Pop Explosion performance, Kirk and crew let their songs speak for themselves. Intermingling dirty-blues stompers such as the foreboding 'Trouble Comes Knocking' with some of their more boisterously adventurous material. The band also took advantage of the venue's acoustic resonance, with set-closer 'It's Only Dark,' off first album 'Cedar Shakes', featuring sound loops of train whistles and loon calls played over Kirk's animalistic shrieking that recalled some of Pink Floyd's more experimental pre-'Dark Side of the Moon' blues tracks.

The undoubted highlight of the evening, however, was the startling rendition of 'Demon Host.' With eyes firmly planted upwards, Kirk sang such apropos lines as "Oh reverend please can I chew your ear? / I have become what I most fear / And I know there's no such thing as ghosts/ but I have seen the demon host" which sent an audible gasp around the holy venue and even caused the usually stone-faced singer to hint at a smile.