''Hot Dreams'' is the fifth studio album by Canadian band Timber Timbre, released on March 31, 2014 on Arts & Crafts. The album was a shortlisted nominee for the

2014 Polaris Music Prize The 2014 edition of the Canadian Polaris Music Prize was presented on September 22, 2014 at The Carlu event theatre in Toronto, Ontario.Laurel Canyon. Not writing alone anymore – as they had on previous albums – the group focused more on a rock and roll trajectory with the new album, also making heavy use of vintage synthesizers and the

mellotron The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical musical instrument developed in Birmingham, England, in 1963. It is played by pressing its keys, each of which pushes a length of magnetic tape against a capstan, which pulls it across a playback head. A ...

. The album was produced by Kirk and Simon Trottier. It was engineered by Graham Lessard at Banff Centre in Banff, Alberta and at Hotel2Tango in Montreal. Additional recordings were done by Trottier at the National Music Centre in Calgary and in

Hull, Quebec Hull is the central business district and oldest neighbourhood of the city of Gatineau, Quebec, Canada. It is located on the west bank of the Gatineau River and the north shore of the Ottawa River, directly opposite Ottawa. As part of the Canadia ...

with Olivier Fairfield.

Critical reception

''Hot Dreams'' was released to mostly positive reviews. At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 80, based on 19 reviews, which indicates a "generally favorable" reception. Heather Phares of

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

wrote, "While ''Hot Dreams'' is slightly less immediate than ''

Creep on Creepin' On ''Creep on Creepin' On'' is the fourth studio album by Timber Timbre, released on April 5, 2011, on Arts & Crafts. The album was recorded in a variety of locations, including a converted church. The album was supported by a variety of concert ...

'', its potent cocktail of menace, glamour, and vulnerability is nothing less than transporting." Kerry Doole of ''

Exclaim! ''Exclaim!'' is a Canadian music and entertainment publisher based in Toronto, which features in-depth coverage of new music across all genres with a special focus on Canadian and emerging artists. The monthly Exclaim! print magazine publishes 7 ...

'' wrote, "

irk The River Irk is a river in the historic county of Lancashire in the North West England that flows through the northern most Lancastrian towns of the ceremonial county of Greater Manchester. It rises to the east of Royton and runs west past ...

proves himself a master of melancholy, as on the Tindersticks-like "This Low Commotion" and the gentle "Run from Me," but he and his comrades inject enough dynamic range to hold your attention throughout."

Track listing

Notes * "Curtains?!" features words by

Simone Schmidt One Hundred Dollars, sometimes seen as $100, is a Canadian alternative country band. Based in Toronto, Ontario, the band currently consists of Simone Schmidt on vocals, Ian Russell on acoustic guitar, Stew Crookes on pedal steel, Paul Mortimer on ...

* "Bring Me Simple Men" features words by Simone Schmidt

Personnel

Musicians * Taylor Kirk – vocals (1–4, 6–9), drums (1–8, 10), acoustic guitar (1, 2, 6, 9),

Novachord The Novachord is an electronic musical instrument often considered the world's first commercial polyphonic synthesizer. All-electronic, incorporating many circuit and control elements found in modern synthesizers, and using subtractive synthesi ...

(1, 3), piano (2, 6–8, 10), percussion (2–9), electric guitar (2, 3, 6–9), Farfisa organ (3),

theremin The theremin (; originally known as the ætherphone/etherphone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox) is an electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by the performer (who is known as a thereminist). It is named afte ...

(6),

Mellotron The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical musical instrument developed in Birmingham, England, in 1963. It is played by pressing its keys, each of which pushes a length of magnetic tape against a capstan, which pulls it across a playback head. A ...

(7),

Hammond organ The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, Hammond organs generated s ...

(8) * Simon Trottier – baritone guitar (all tracks), EBow guitar (1), concert bass drum (1), tubular bells (1, 4, 6, 8, 9), electric guitar (2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10), vocals (3, 8), acoustic guitar (4), Marxophone (4, 6, 9), lap steel guitar (5, 7), Mellotron (5), EBow lap steel guitar (6, 10), chains (6, 9), percussion (10) *

Mika Posen Mika Posen is a Canadian violinist and music instructor based in Ottawa. She is known for collaborating and performing with acts including Timber Timbre, Agnes Obel, and Forest City Lovers and performs as a solo artist under the name Merganzer. H ...

– strings (1, 2, 4–10), vocals (9, 10) * Mathieu Charbonneau – Mellotron (1, 10), Vox Continental (1), Chamberlin M1 (2, 6), Novachord (3, 5, 8), harpsichord (4, 5, 7, 10), piano (4, 9), Farfisa organ (7), Wurlitzer electronic piano (8) * Olivier Fairfield – tape machine (1, 10), synthesizer (1, 6, 10),

Fender Rhodes piano The Rhodes piano (also known as the Fender Rhodes piano) is an electric piano invented by Harold Rhodes, which became popular in the 1970s. Like a conventional piano, the Rhodes generates sound with keys and hammers, but instead of strings, t ...

(2, 5), drums (5, 9),

Hohner Pianet The Hohner Pianet is a type of electric piano, electro-mechanical piano built by the Hohner company of Trossingen, West Germany and designed by Ernst Zacharias. The Pianet was a variant of his earlier reed-based Hohner electric piano, the Cembal ...

(5), electric guitar (5), Hammond organ (9) * Mark Lawson –

drum synthesizer The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a she ...

* Colin Stetson – C melody saxophone (2, 6, 10), tenor saxophone (2), bass saxophone (2, 5, 6, 8, 10), baritone saxophone (5, 8) * Romy Lightman – vocals (2, 9) Technical * Taylor Kirk – production * Simon Trottier – production, additional recording * Graham Lessard – engineering * Ben Oegema – assistant engineering * Mark Lawson – mixing * Harris Newman – mastering Packaging * Robyn Kotyk – layout * Taylor Kirk – layout, cover photograph * Laura Margaret Ramsey – insert photograph

References

{{Authority control 2014 albums Timber Timbre albums Arts & Crafts Productions albums