Haunting, beautiful, unsettlingly close

Former Lambchop sideman William Tyler rejected ambition and embraced lo-fi recording. Time Indefinite is his most startling music yet

- By Laura Snapes

When William Tyler put out Goes West in 2019, the album minted what the Nashville-born guitarist calls “an expansive, aspirational part of my life”.

It was a prettier take on the crisp heartland Krautrock of his 2016 breakout Modern Country. Both were released on renowned US indie label Merge, his home after starting out as sideman for Silver Jews and Lambchop in the early 2000s. “I was living in California,” says Tyler, 45. “I was travelling the world. My career was very much upwards.” He embraced it, for better or worse. “I will fully admit that I was riding a kind of ego-type energy that was probably good for a while, but certainly was apathy for real personal growth.”

Goes West was Tyler’s attempt to capitalise on Modern Country, seeing how commercial he could possibly make instrumental guitar music originally informed by Public Image Ltd and discordant label Siltbreeze. “But there’s a glass ceiling,” he says now, speaking from his parents’ house in Nashville. Declining record sales generally meant it only sold as much as Tyler’s second album, 2013’s Impossible Truth. Additionally, he says, “the way I was drinking was moving in a pretty negative direction. Being in your late 30s, your body and mind start not being as resilient to it.”