Singer-songwriter Taylor Kirk, mastermind of the Canadian indie-folk group Timber Timbre, got a little bashful when we compared his deep, deadpan singing to Randy Newman. “I like that comparison,” Kirk said a brief recent interview. “He’s not an influence at all but I hear the similarities and I find it funny.” Timber Timbre’s eponymous third album, with its exceptionally sharp and wry turns of phrase and lurching, bluesy levity, also calls to mind Grizzly Bear, Leonard Cohen and Tom Brousseau. “I listen to a lot of contemporary music,” Kirk commented, “but I’m always going back to artists I feel have made music that sounds like it could have come from any time. This is something I want to do with my music.” Like Andrew Bird, Kirk is a simultaneously intellectual and irreverent lyricist who succeeds in, as he says, “writing about extremely personal things shrouded in imagery I find interesting.” Extremely interested persons can find more than an image of Timber Timbre at Santa Fe Brewing Co. on Monday.
Adam Perry 