Search - Timeout Drawer :: Nowonmai

Pulsing hypnotic rhythms, languorous soundscapes, moody mela

Aquarius Records | San Francisco | 12/24/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"If there was ever going to be a band to FINALLY steal the slow-building-atmospheric-cinematic-post-rock-soundscape crown from Godspeed! You Black Emperor it would definitely have to be The Timeout Drawer. Sure there's Mogwai, Explosions In The Sky, the Grails, Mono, Silver Mt Zion and about a million Godspeed! side projects, but as good as those bands are, and as much as I love them, I'd definitely be hard pressed to pass a blind listening test. Sure, they all do their own thing, with subtle differences, but there's plenty of times I couldn't tell you if a certain track was a Mogwai song or an Explosions In The Sky track, even with a gun to my head (okay, -maybe- with a gun to my head).



Which brings us to Nowonmai by The Timeout Drawer. A quick listen will reveal all the stuff I love about post rock: pulsing hypnotic rhythms, languorous soundscapes, moody melancholia, intricate arrangements, no vocals, slow building epics. What can I say? I love that stuff. But listen a little closer and you'll begin to understand how the Timeout Drawer manage to avoid sounding like just another post rock band. I haven't actually been this blown away by an instrumental rock band since I discovered German post rockers Fuehler (no longer available sad to say) way back when.



Drifting dreamy atmospheric bliss builds and builds beneath fuzzy synthesizer melodies and throbbing propulsive rhythms, before super blown out distorted guitars explode the whole thing into a dense wall of white hot fuzz, a thick slab of rumbling buzzing guitar drone, that then crumbles to pieces and from the wreckage emerges a groovy jazzy shuffle, meandering lazily through a gauzy soundfield of throbbing low-end and barely-there synthesizer chirps. And that's just the first track! Phew. Not every track runs the sonic gamut like that, some just sort of drift along, dreamy and shimmering, some explode with feverish intensity and never let up, but they all manage to be dense and complex and make every part seem totally essential to the whole, no matter how convoluted or how simple they seem on the surface.



Sonically it's the synthesizer really that is the most noticeable addition to the Timeout Drawer's post rock pallete, not that most bands don't use a synthesizer, it's just that the Timeout Drawer use it for everything. Weird warbly melodies, rumbling drones, wild wigged out space rock swoops, every track is laced with that warm synth fuzz, sometimes replacing the guitar or the bass, sometimes just adding more and more layers of sound. Add to that a penchant for unlikely stretches of Calexico-ish deserty twang, pounding metal guitar crunch, bursts of manic angular riffing, lonely moaning horns and even shuffling programmed beats. Programmed beats? Well, that sort of makes sense when you realize the band started out on hip hop label Chocolate Industries when they were more of a post rock / IDM hybrid, and that skittery shuffling IDM sensibility translates strangely well to these brooding epic instrumentals.



Plus how can you not love a band with song titles like: "What Looked Like Morning Was The Beginning Of Endless Night", "Bursting With Tears I Commit To Destroying You", "I Fall So Far And I Fall So High" and "Blue Eyed And FIlled With Horror"!"

Jesus

Malcolm | Milwaukee, WI | 02/13/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I saw these guys play with Mono last year at the Empty Bottle, 2004 I think, and I was just blown away. This album is colossal and very very layered and shreds and climaxes like the end of the world is coming. Powerful post-rock, if that genre term is applicable."