Terrorbird

All This Time

Image of Terrorbird - All This Time

About this item

Terror Bird is the songs of Vancouver artist Nikki Never. Beginning with naive but affecting songs hammered into primitive recording apparatus and released on handdubbed cassette releases, Terror Bird soon attracted the attention of intrepid independent labels such as Night People, La Station Radar and Adagio830. Each release has documented a growing maturity in songwriting and emotional scope. “All This Time” is Terror Bird’s 3rd full length and is by far the most personal, emotionally affecting and musically developed.

Recorded at home over a period of 3 months, the 10 songs on “All This Time” document a period of intense emotional upheaval, a period wherein Never underwent major shifts in her personal life, rediscovered the solo recording process (previous albums having used live drumming and studio production) and married a raw, personal music with a straighttotape aesthetic most intone with her early recording experiences. The difference this time is that Never’s unique voice at turns operatic and fragile, untutored and wearing its heart on its sleeve serves as the perfect conduit for the emotional turmoil in the songs. Never’s voice has grown into a formidable instrument, a towering, unabashed vocal whose resonance curls around the synth and drum machine production, at times duetting with itself, at times scaling the vocal register to reach new dramatic heights.

Brought up on the music of the 80s “studio” The Smiths, Siousxie, The Cure Never’s music exists beyond modern zeitgeists or considerations, subverting “big production” music into a personal DIY aesthetic. It’s a pure songwriting that outgrows genre and thrives purely on the merits of direct communication between songwriter and listener. Each song on “All This Time” serves as a chapter in a narrative that is universal; from the selfdoubt and loneliness of opener “The Wrong Way,” to the doomed bedroom romance of “Try To Break Me,” from the masochistic guilt of “Locket” to the nearanthemic “Lust & Violence.” Each song speaks directly, plainly, to the listener, dispensing as much as possible with the unnecessary augmentation of modern pop music; “All This Time” is simply the deeply romantic, partdoomed / parthopeful songs of a singular, unique talent.

TRACK LISTING

The Wrong Way
Costume
Try To Break Me
On Your Vacation
All This Time
Elliot
Do You Remember?
Locket
Lust & Violence
Don’t Believe You

Back to top