Truculent - Born For The Gallows Or The Wheel SM069
Truculent - Born For The Gallows Or The Wheel
12" LP
"Truculent is what happens when one guitar embodies an entire worldview. Bending time, tone, and tuning at will, mastermind Dan Timlin transforms everyday sounds and experimental guitar into equal parts protest, meditation, and memoir - with political and emotional intensity woven into each reverberation.
More than a project or band, Truculent is a practice, where Timlin crafts songs and builds environments of immersive storytelling, both in the studio and on the stage. As the world of Truculent continues to evolve, listeners are certain to find new and unpredictable experiences that reflect Truculent’s ever-expanding sonic landscape." - Chelsea Nelson-Fernandez
The concept of a Brain-Weave was explained to me as “the collected unconscious of a group of people, in variable states of sensory arousal, connecting and in that connection a new reality blossoms”. A psychiatrist might call this “foille et deux” or “mass hysteria”. While I agree that in some instances the negative connotations of this diagnosis is warranted, I differ in interpreting the Brain-Weave as wholly negative. Are not the members of any given punk band intertwined in a Brain-Weave of sorts? Does their passion for the subject of their songs, and the visceral sensory experience of blaring drums and amplifiers not produce the arousal needed? Does the hypnotic act of rehearsing and performing as a collective not hint at the subconscious connection? To the Brain-Weave there is no difference between the sporadic improvised movements of a Jazz ensemble and the rigidly rehearsed pop of any top 40 artist. The connection exists in a state uncontrolled by us. Sure we can feed it and try to mold the circumstances to be advantageous for producing the weave. But in the end it’s not ours to choose. We can no more choose to participate in the weave than we can choose to participate in the beating of our hearts. When I lost my friend I could tangibly see the effects of his absence in my life. I could see the box with his ashes, I could read all the nice things everyone had to say about him. I could commiserate with peers about him never playing his guitar again or fixing that amplifier, or microphone. But I couldn’t feel that he was gone. I could not feel that he was no longer a part of my life. Mike and I had a complicated relationship but I know our friendship is alive because unlike an animal the Brain-Weave can never die...
Our hearts like hydrargyrum
Flowing, bending, molded, un-mended
Quicksilver tongues, fired ad nauseum
Their fickle flooding, perforce young minds did
Not wait to declare a love like avalanches
Decade passed, surely not the last
Marriage of a sun beam and a sarcophagus
Dedicated to Wynn Bruce, Hind Rajab, Linda J. Zhang, Aaron Bushnell, Max Azzarello, Matt Nelson, Demetrius Wallace, Trayvon Brown, DeAndre Gordon, Thairie Ritchie, and all victims of corporate imperialism.
credits
released October 10, 2025
All songs by Dan Timlin
Recorded spring 2024 with Dan Angel in Philadelphia, PA
Tracks 10 & 17 Jessica Kramer plays Upright Bass
Cover art by John Bussott
Mastered by Chris Lawson-Allen
©Strange Mono 2025
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