Words by Justin Turford
If someone had told me that this new record by the Tucson, Arizona duo Trees Speak (Damian Diaz & Daniel Martin Diaz) was the soundtrack to some arthouse sci-fi film, I would have firmly believed it. Cosmically expansive yet also harbouring an overwhelming sense of claustrophobia at points, ‘TimeFold’ is their sixth album (in just 4 years!) for Soul Jazz Records and their celebrated and broad palette of motorik krautrock grooves, NYC post-punk grind, European soundtrack themes, Musique Concrète, and a zillion other influences from the more experimental realms of 20th Century music remain in place. As Daniel explained to me, it also exists on the margins of jazz, which is certainly true though not in any swinging club gig way.
With an impossibly well sequenced running order, the nineteen (short) tracks on ‘TimeFold’ resemble chapters in a story: a suite of space dwelling tensions: a near wordless environment of intense electronic vibrations and occasional analogue drums that demands the audience to listen actively. This is not ambient music. I say ‘near’ wordless because there are episodic contributions of spoken word from Ashley Christine Edwards who’s heavily treated voice sounds like one of those lost in space radio messages or something from post-punk 80s land: a barely discernible warning from the past (or future) or shamanic messaging, her voice lending further poetic and hallucinatory qualities.
Trees Speak
The story of the band’s name is also the mission. “Trees Speak’s exploration of futuristic technologies and the communication of nature, with the evocative concept of trees and plants acting as organic hard drives storing data and knowledge.”
Several of the tracks draw heavily from the powerful arpeggiated synthesiser sounds of 1970s Tangerine Dream or Jean-Michel Jarre. Not cleanly defined like a John Carpenter soundtrack but densely layered under multiple textural interruptions such as the interstellar opening track ‘TimeFold’ that weirdly makes me think of Miami Vice if Jodorowsky had somehow directed it and not Michael Mann. The high wind pads and melancholic arpeggios menace lysergically before segueing softly into the angular Can-inflected jazz of ‘Prodrome’. Its squealing reeds and Liebezeit-esque drumming over an undulating synth, desert guitar licks and minor blue chords make it quite an opening.
The shortened song titles hint at shards of information, pieces of a futuristic, possibly paranoid jigsaw. Titles such as ‘They Know’, ‘Among Us’, ‘Post-Truth’ and ‘Emotion Engine’ suggest a Philip K. Dick future, of darkness and fungal intrusions amongst the manmade tech ‘solutions’. Not a clean one, that’s for sure. ‘Emotion Engine’ is definitely an older future. Musically, this is Italian 60s and 70s horror soundtrack territory. Addams Family clavinets, a funky picked electric bass, a touch of whimsical flute and a general feeling of discordant uneasiness. Is Mod-Gothic a thing?
‘Phenomena’ pushes the arpeggiated synth intensity to ten with its superfast acid wobble but is also somehow blissful due to the airy Star Trek-in-a-cathedral chords.
The controlled feedback and MBV bandsaw guitar washes of ‘Psychic State’ give this powerful slow-groover a majestic heaviness. Simple but effective drums, vintage organ and Ashley’s disembodied proclamations keep it grounded on Earth.
Alongside the live instrumentation and synth programming, the duo utilise and explore old school avant-garde techniques such as track splicing, looping and sound collage but I can’t really discern at which points this happens, even as someone who used to do similar experiments. But it is these techniques that amplify the music’s forceful strangeness. Rarely is there just one mood present; like a fiercely painted canvas, the sensation is of heat and energy, of blurred emotions.
Ironically, the previously mentioned ‘Among Us’ is one of the more positive sounding tracks on the record. Hypnotic looping keys, live drums and an ever growing intensity and grandeur to the synths gives it a lovely feeling of escape as it segues into the beatless Jon Hopkins-esque zone of ‘Entity System’. Another excellent moment.
Fearsome detuned wasps on ‘They Know’ roll into the pummelling shoegaze ‘Synchrotron’: all feedback loops and tribal drums over an urgent bass before ‘Dreamless’ returns them again to somewhere between the desert and a remote European castle where the dead still live, and one of the dead is pretty sexy.
The motorik ‘Silicon Visions’ and the apocalyptic throb of ‘Forever Chemicals’ wraps up this superb record in a haze of feedback harmonics and vinyl dust. Psychedelic, retro-futurist and with a fervid heart, ‘TimeFold’ is a step above and away from the many artists currently producing music in a similar vein. All encompassing and intoxicating, you must buy the vinyl. 10/10
Released on 15 November 2024 on Soul Jazz Records
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