Time Fraud is the solo project of Oakland’s Nick Wortham, who is perhaps best known for his work as the singer and organist for post-punk band Healers. On Cry Me a Highway, the debut Time Fraud release, Wortham borrows some of the Healers blueprint, but strips it back to something altogether more solitary and sombre. The droning hum of synthesizers fills the void left by rhythm guitar, while samples of bells and seventies console organs play the part of percussion.
The stripped-back ethos is more than just aesthetic. The album was recorded using a portable DIY recording studio (powered by a car battery), and the vocals were taped in the cab of a pickup truck parked in a secluded spot in industrial West Oakland. “The microphone hung from the rear view mirror and the compressor sat on the dash,” describes the album blurb,” the mixer and laptop rested on the passenger seat while the car battery sat on the floor pan.”
The recording sounds remarkably good considering this makeshift studio, and the cramped conditions lend a sense of intimacy and claustrophobia that complements the record’s themes perfectly. Because Wortham uses this setup to confront some pretty personal issues, from the Bay Area housing crisis and the Ghost Ship fire (in which he lost friends) to his own biracial identity and the dehumanizing impact of technology on our daily lives and interactions.
From the samples that intersperse opener ‘U & I’ (“pain on top of pain on top of pain”), to the sparse synth dirge of ‘A Room Without a View’, this isn’t an upbeat record, but even at its darkest there is still a sense of pop sensibility. Perhaps the best example is ‘Tennessee’, a track which captures the oddly melancholic sense of digitally-modulated humanity that Time Fraud conjures so well. Opening with a distorted lullaby of a sample, the song is powered by emotive keys which build into something unquestionably affecting, Wortham sounding resigned to remaining unmoored in the centre of his life.
You’re never home, even if you go
back to Tennessee where all your seeds are sown
[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=977984141 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=3085917505]
Cry Me a Highway is out now via F R E A K S and you can get it from Bandcamp.
