Tim Baker
Forever Overhead


4.0
excellent

Review

by K. Prince USER (10 Reviews)
April 20th, 2020 | 13 replies


Release Date: 2019 | Tracklist

Review Summary: like a lucky find in the 25-cent vinyl basket

If you argue that good music can exist without pretension in 2020, Tim Baker is an excellent case study. After over a decade of making expansive and earnest anthems with Newfoundland indie rock darlings Hey Rosetta!, Baker’s reputation as a songwriter-of-the-people is etched in the annals of 2010s-Canadiana: his work with his Juno-winning seven-piece indie-rockestra recalled the ambitious bombast of Montreal’s Arcade Fire with the unassuming, every-man candour of Vancouver’s Dan Mangan. But with the folding of Hey Rosetta! in 2017, Baker made a big move: from the windy, isolated St. John’s—a 9 hour drive to the ferry, and then a 9 hour ferry to the mainland—to Toronto, Canada’s largest city and economic centre. The tension between these two wildly different environs is evident in every fabric of Tim Baker’s 2019 solo debut Forever Overhead. “I wait here in my bedroom / I bend my bend my hips to the chair / cool my face on the fake wood”, Baker sings on ‘Strange River’—a song that examines the value of human connection in a city of millions. “We came from the forest / we came from the caves of the coast / that was so long before us / but I think my body still knows.

Forever Overhead was released one year ago this week, and its message is soundly in touch with the events of today—Baker sings about human contact, community, and desire. Forever Overhead is, viewed most simply, trademark Tim Baker earnestness—free of pretension. At its most, Forever Overhead is a charming 70s AM radio throwback replete with dampened snares, palm-muted walking bass lines, and pre-amp saturated harmonies. You hear the sustain pedal creak underneath Baker’s feet on the piano-led opener ‘Dance’. You hear fuzzed out melodic leads performed by Baker’s voice, as if he’d forgotten to book a slide guitarist and opted to perform the kazoo through a pedalboard. Tremolo-picked autoharps surrounded by tambourines and congas give way to playful horn sections and cascading, arrhythmic pizzicato string arrangements. The instrumental performances guide Baker’s warm insightful musings through a thousand in-song key changes and non-fussed, timeless hooks. Forever Overhead plays like the lucky find in a 25-cent vinyl basket: the kind of record you throw on when the family’s over for dinner. It isn’t abrasive or ambitious. It has nothing to prove beyond that Tim Baker is the only person who writes quite like Tim Baker does.

Baker is already proven in his lyrics and songwriting, and Forever Overhead features some of his most poignant, affecting pieces to date. Two stunning standouts: ‘The Eighteenth Hole’ and ‘Two Mirrors’, songs that appear back-to-back in the centre of the track listing. ‘The Eighteenth Hole’—a loosely-true story of attending a wedding of an ex-lover—is a careful, plodding journey that succeeds both because of its staggering vocal performance (Baker’s emotive tenor has always been spellbinding) and its precise, detail-oriented approach to storytelling: “your so-called friends, they never understand / they want you to ‘chill out, man’ — something you never can”. In ‘Two Mirrors’, the emotion takes centre stage in a song mourning the loss of a close friend—the delivery of the lines “saying ‘*** you’ to the dark / saying ‘*** you’ to the deep / saying ‘*** off, cancer!’, / saying, ‘*** 2017!’” is so perfectly simple, cathartic, and damning all at once. The song bounces around like a Jackson Browne epic, but is buoyed by—and I’ll say it again, one last time—Baker’s unshakeable earnestness.

You could argue that it takes a lot of happy accidents for a record like Forever Overhead to exist. You could argue it takes a person who grew up singing celtic classics in Newfoundland’s famous “kitchen-parties” to write with this level of uncomplicated authenticity. You could argue it takes that same person moving from his incredibly distinct homeland to an unfamiliar metropolis to capture this brand of existential tension. I would personally suggest Forever Overhead is the sound of Tim Baker not making any arguments at all—no lofty expectations, just well-treated musings on being Tim Baker in a world post-Hey Rosetta! Forever Overhead is the opposite of a demanding listen, but it provides a world of nuance and humanity on repeated listens—whether you’re listening dedicatedly or casually, Forever Overhead is a pleasing, uncomplicated experience. That in itself is worth celebrating.

Our team wins / no matter what you ***ers want / the sweet black, earth / all of us will be there soon.



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user ratings (4)
4.1
excellent


Comments:Add a Comment 
Waior
April 20th 2020


11778 Comments

Album Rating: 4.0

the beginning of an attempt to give some love to some unheralded canadian music over the past year or so

parksungjoon
April 20th 2020


47231 Comments


holy crap waior is back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

parksungjoon
April 20th 2020


47231 Comments


mods fix the year from 2020 to 2019 pls

parksungjoon
April 20th 2020


47231 Comments


intrguing read, hard pos and welcome back mate!

might check this even though its not exactly my wheelhouse

mynameischan
Staff Reviewer
April 21st 2020


2407 Comments


good to see you back. great writing.

Waior
April 21st 2020


11778 Comments

Album Rating: 4.0

thank you. nice to talk to talk about music again

BigTuna
April 21st 2020


5917 Comments


Bring em out.

Gnocchi
Staff Reviewer
April 21st 2020


18262 Comments


I remember this guy, nice times.

SandwichBubble
April 21st 2020


13812 Comments


Have yet to hear anything by Hey Rosetta!, should fix that.
I bet this is good, but I gotta start on Rosetta before I even think about checking this.

Waior
April 22nd 2020


11778 Comments

Album Rating: 4.0

It is kind for this to be featured, but I hope we all understand this nice album is a year old!

SandwichBubble
April 22nd 2020


13812 Comments


Maybe they just really like your review.
That or someone's definitely getting fired.

Donchivo
April 22nd 2020


2036 Comments


Am I the only one who got just got here because being stoked to find the long lost solo album of the legendary Cirith Ungol screeching door / air raid siren Tim Baker?

But: good read anyway!! Sounds actually intriguing ;)

Sowing
Moderator
April 22nd 2020


44509 Comments


It's funny, I actually featured this for about 10 seconds when it was first published because the release date was listed as 2020. I removed it after I saw the release date changed to 2019 - now it's back up on the front page - guess it was just meant to be!

Review is really good. Glad it got its time in the spotlight, even if it was brief :-)



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