The answer remains doggedly undefinable, but Time Indefinite is clearly pumped full the secret ingredient that separates the pretty but unsubstantial sunset hues of most ambient Americana from emotionally bracing music that speak of both harsh experiences and the human mind’s capacity for healing and renewal.
Rooted in sonic experimentation (such as recording loops and snippets of musical motifs on an old tape recorder, and using these low-res foundations as a basis for compositions), Time Indefinite is musically a bold step into the unknown for William Tyler. There’s not even a flicker of the muscular psych-boogie maneuvers of the Nashville-based guitarist’s most recent full album, 2023’s electrifying full band live record Secret Stratosphere. The electronic haze and disorientating sound manipulation on Time Indefinite nod towards the toolkits of electronic music, but the album’s unsettled but powerfully moving cosmic drifts don’t have much in common with “Darkness, Darkness”, Tyler’s superb recent collaboration with Four Tet (more of which is to come) either. There’s plenty of the ghostly surface hiss (reminiscent of a faded photograph) that peppered New Vanitas. Whereas that stripped-down 2020 album was still predominantly built on Tyler’s boundless chops as a an innovative guitarist, Time Indefinite uses guitar as one core ingredient (alongside tape loops, abstract dissonance and hypnotic repetition) to build ambient anthems for mental disintegration and gradual recovery, as opposed to the guitar-centric grooves you might expect from a musician whose seamless blends of US solo guitar traditions with ‘motorik’ rhythmic glides have played a key role in fostering what’s now referred to as cosmic Americana.
Tyler has recently spoken of his difficulties with deteriorating mental health and alcoholism, and there are restless moments here that suggest the frantically spiraling, obsessively circling thought patterns linked to anxiety and panic attacks. The mysterious opener “Cabin Six”, for example, opens with harsh bursts of chopped-up white noise that resembles a domestic appliance in turmoil, before settling into ghostly transmissions of otherworldly wails, like an army of what-ifs from the past all crashing in at once. Next to this, the gracefully calm, unhurriedly expanding guitar melody of “Concern” feels almost unbearably beautiful, like a hopeful sunrise following a troubled and sleepless night, even if . Featuring deliberately off-focus samples of a choir recital bubbling beneath a hypnotic guitar pattern, “Star of Hope” amps up the emotional resonance, suggesting heavenly music encountered in a dream, or a choral recital drifting in from beneath the waves.
Rest of Time Indefinite follows a similar pattern (as well as maintaining quality), culminating with “Held”, which blooms into heartbreaking (yet also heart-mending) uncomplicated beauty after opening sections of uneasy, disembodied drone. With Time Indefinite, William Tyler offers a fresh and uniquely compelling way to affirm that it’s OK not to be OK: these are humbly majestic anthems for our anxious age.
