William Tyler – “Time Indefinite, Part One”

It’s nice to start the day off with news of a new album on the way from William Tyler. Following collaborations with Kieran Hebden and Marisa Anderson, film scores, and a more rock-oriented record with his band The Impossible Truth, Tyler returns to the solo setting this week. Not content to simply sit idle among the guitar splendor that he’s known for, the new record follows suit on the widened view of a standalone single, “Flight Final,” that came out quietly last year. Like a few other contemporaries (Daniel Bachman, Old Saw, Magic Tuber Stringband) Tyler’s latest looks to blend the forms of folk with the crumbling nostalgia for an Americana that never quite existed. He lets the listener deep into the new record, releasing the first three tracks, cracking the door open with an unsettling aura on “Cabin Six.”

Tyler’s not as pessimistic as some of his peers through, as some hope remains in the light stringwork and hopeful hues woven into “Concern.” The song’s optimism cracks just a bit at the end, bringing to mind the degradation prominent in The Caretaker’s treatises on memory. The trio wraps with a work that’s even further tied to the casual corrosion of memory — a choral swell that has all the hallmarks of a cinematic tearjerker, bent and folded into creased pieces under Tyler’s watch. The new record, Time Indefinite, is out April 25th from Psychic Hotline.

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