Dutch indie folk artist Thijs Kuijken has been the torch bearer for slowcore since 2010. I am Oak started out as a band, but now it is just him, playing all the instruments on his new album, Time Drifts. Clasine Haringsma stepped up to the mike, supplying an extra layer of vocals on most of the songs and Eline Toebes added cello to Oath (Ride). He is an introspective mood, contemplating about how to deal with getting older as well as reassessing his hopes and dreams (The Way I See I It).
The pandemic put an end to the usual grind of album > tour > album > tour grind of being a recording artist. Left to his own devices, he had the opportunity to rethink his music and lyrics. The crumbling social cohesion shines through some of the new songs. Those are, although still highly personal, also dealing with the shehanigans and clusterfucks happening in the outside world. Kuijken makes a case for trying to heal things without pontificating. Time itself might come to the rescue (Past and Future, A Sight Unfolds), once people realize that shouting at each other (or worse) won't get them anywhere.
Time Drifts will be released via Snowstar Records (vinyl, CD, digital). Release date: April 4.
Tracks:- Beholder
- Dreamt of You
- Embers
- Explorer
- Hand of Time
- Natural Lines of Drift
- Past and Future
- The Way I See It
- Two Eyes
- No Known Known
- A Sight Unfolds
- Oath (Ride)
- 03/21 Peel Slowy and See, Leiden
- 04/12 Record Store Day instores:
Broese, Utrecht 12:00
IORR, Epe 15:00
Plato, Apeldoorn 17:00 - 04/24 EKKO, Utrecht
- 05/23 Der Aa-Theater, Groningen
- 05/24 Hedon, Zwolle
- 05/25 Mezz, Breda
