Each track on Saturday Night, the debut solo album of TIM DARCY, the singer and guitarist of OUGHT, is woven to the next in a winding, complex journey through a charged, continuous present. DARCY's unmistakable, commanding voice and lyrical phrasing are, as they are in OUGHT, vital to the entire affair. He over-enunciates. He whoops and croons. He makes damn sure you know there are no tossed-off lines here. At the same time there is an evident softness in these songs and an accompanying musicality. While there are moments that take their strength in sparseness, DARCY is unafraid to paint in economic technicolor as his wry lyricism floats nimbly upon chorused guitars and the occasional synthetic artifact. The album title comes in part from the nights and weekends when it was recorded: a six month period that overlapped with the recording of OUGHT's second album where Darcy gathered with friends to record in the storage room of a commercial studio in Toronto. The result sounds like a person exploring his voice in a room full of people he trusts: joyful, shot through with struggle, unfakeably honest. Intimate and rollicking as a house show, delicate as a late-night phone call.
