Mary Timony Makes an Epic Return w/ Album “Untame the TIger” on Merge Records : 02/23

A music prodigy hailing from Washington, DC, Timony is a special figure in today’s world of music and has been for over three decades. She immediately began playing guitar in her formative years while attending the Duke Ellington School of the Arts where she participated in their jazz band as well as studied the viola. In the early 90’s she joined local outfit Autoclave, releasing a couple of records on her dream label, Dischord Records and officially got a taste of the touring/writing/recording side of music. Timony eventually relocated to Boston where she formed the band Helium after graduating from Boston University with a degree in English literature. An incredibly influential band that would put her on the map, they would go on to release a couple of albums and a handful of singles on Matador, a label she would soon call home, before embarking on a lifelong journey as a solo musician in the years to come. TImony made a return back to DC in the mid 2000’s and has since worked with folks such as Devin Ocampo, members of Sleater-Kinney, Quasi, Alec MacKaye (younger brother of Ian MacKaye), Fugazi and Rites of Spring’s drummer Brendan Candy and many others. With four incredible LPs, “Mountains”, “The Golden Dove”, “Ex Hex” and “The Shapes We Make”, under her belt, Timony has made an epic return with her brand new album entitled “Untame the Tiger” on Merge Records making this her 5th studio album to date.

The album is a representation of this safe place of critical comfort, reflections of the crystal complexities of the soul and the divine weight of heartache that loss can bring to an individual. A celebration of acoustic anomalies and a rehabbed heart, “Untame the Tiger” is a mantra of love and understanding of one’s place on this humble blue marble while it spins uncontrollably into a theme park void of numbers, letters and an endless run of Antique Roadshow. The album opens up with an exploratory number like that of Dylan entitled “No Third” and features swells of sharp linguistics and intense observations of some place far hidden in a northwest bardo. Timony separates the atoms of conflict and comprise barehanded in a Walt Whitman vacuum. Disassembled explosives underneath bedrock and vintage magazine clippings, the album continues on with the single “Dominoes” and captures this glassy inferno of fractured simplicity and harmonious pleasure. Timony has demonstrated this countless times before throughout her back catalog, but there is something particularly piquant and sobering about “Untame the Tiger” and it’s nine tracks. It expresses this heavily matured narrative that we’re all desperately attempting to master and befriend the constant separation from heart/body and mind/soul. Timony has perfectly captured a rare type of lighting like that of H.G. Wells who so desperately described in War of the Worlds. This album should be a recommended prescription along with whatever else we’re all taking these days.

Timony will be hitting the road in late February and March with supporting acts such as Youbet and label mate Rosali Middleman (whom is also touring her brand new album, “Bite Down” on Merge Records). If you’re in a city, or town that she’s passing through makes sure you experience this album in a live setting. It’s a game changer…