William Tyler : Time Indefinite
William Tyler‘s Time Indefinite is drawn inexorably to musical exploration at its magnetic core. Those familiar with Tyler’s collaborations with the multihyphenate collective Lambchop or his evocative explorations with a range of performers, including Four Tet, will find this latest album a deepening of his ongoing push beyond boundaries rather than a comfortable retreat into the guitar-centric idylls he’s been known for.
Conceptually inspired by documentarian Ross McElwee’s meditations on life’s inherent messiness, Time Indefinite echoes that narrative complexity with remarkable authenticity. Tyler is transparent about this being a deeply personal reckoning—his conversation with The Guardian among the more touching confessions. Time Indefinite is a record borne from mental distress, creative self-doubt and existential reflection. Yet, it’s precisely this vulnerability that makes the album resonate. Tyler transforms personal despair into a broader commentary on collective anxieties, rendering the album an empathetic audio diary.
From its initial moments, the listener is thrust into a disconcerting sonic ambiguity. The opening track, “Cabin Six,” greets us with a jagged loop torn straight from a vintage tape machine, crackling and distorted, unsettling yet oddly intimate. It’s as if Tyler has invited you to rifle through a forgotten attic of memories, the air thick with the hiss of old tapes and the aggressive scent of oxidized metal. It’s not merely experimental; it’s almost archaeological, excavating soundscapes from moments long decayed. Later, “A Dream, A Flood” summons similar energy. The abrasive first of its eight minutes recedes into an almost ambient mélange of electronics and slight hints of analog composition. Close to the seventh minute, there is but a suggestion of menace in the bass, but it quickly subsides into the found-sound ethos early on. It’s a bold opener, certainly.
“Concern,” however, marks an immediate tonal pivot, unveiling guitar chords bathed in twilight hues—a melodic clarity gently weaving through murmurs of distortion. Here, Tyler embraces warmth without fully relinquishing melancholy, the strings and steel guitar ascending gently, harmonies threading a fine line between tentative hope and resigned weariness. The nuance in this balance feels particularly poignant given Tyler’s candid reflection on mental anguish and isolation. The song oscillates subtly into those fractured artifacts of the opening, evoking a nostalgia not for a past lived, but one imagined—memories corrupted yet deeply comforting. The fact the song is without lyrics only makes it more beguiling as to its true meaning.
Moving deeper into Time Indefinite, the album unveils itself not as a collection of standalone tracks, but as an intricately woven tapestry, capturing the tumultuous interplay between despair and resilience. “Star of Hope” begins with the ghostly echoes of a distant choral arrangement, as though Tyler is drifting from the grittiness of the start and tuning into an ethereal frequency on the edge of consciousness. His fascination with the fragmented origins of sacred melodies is manifest here, as fractured harmonics drift and recombine in unpredictable, spectral patterns.
Yet, amidst this textural experimentation, “Howling at the Second Moon” emerges with surprising grace and traditional accessibility that feels approachable and inviting. The song is an almost delicate guitar-driven ode that nods subtly toward the faded grandeur of Windham Hill’s ambient lineage. However, Tyler layers beneath it an unsettling elements and murmur, like the muted howls of anxieties kept at bay, suggesting tranquility is never absolute but merely provisional. A later cut, “Anima Motel” offers a similar vibe. The aforementioned track explores a quieter, surreal territory, gently hypnotizing with drifting acoustic patterns, each note shimmering, ephemeral, but gently haunted. These songs also present a carryover to the disquiet early on, reminding the listener of how cohesive this album seems. “Electric Lake” serves as the album’s darkly radiant centerpiece, an entrancing drone that fuses La Monte Young’s minimalist purity with Tyler’s own lo-fi inflections. It pulses with an almost subterranean energy, its luminous surfaces reflecting a concealed anguish beneath.
One of the album’s most resonant qualities is its refusal to offer easy resolutions or predictable crescendos. Instead, each track dissolves into the next, much like life’s less tidy transitions. Tyler’s meticulousness ensures that no moment feels accidental. Even “Held,” the album’s penultimate track, initially seems like the perfect farewell—a meditative lullaby drifting serenely toward closure. But Tyler resists easy endings, choosing instead to close with “Ojai,” a peculiar and enchanting soundscape suspended in emotional limbo. Here, synthesizers mingle with echoing guitars, forming a restless dialogue that never fully resolves, instead fading ambiguously into silence.
Sonically restless and emotionally raw, William Tyler’s Time Indefinite is less a conventional listening experience and more a profound immersion. It navigates the blurred edges of memory, loss, and renewal with haunting precision, constantly challenging and redefining its own emotional landscape. This is music less concerned with being immediately graspable than it is with capturing the ephemeral, uncertain quality of being alive in troubled times. Tyler isn’t offering answers—only powerful affirmations that in the flux of uncertainty, creativity and catharsis thrive brilliantly, defiantly intact.
Label: Psychic Hotline
Year: 2025
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