The truth is, the Ube's moniker refers as much to his musical catch-all-ism as to his physical presence. Social Anxiety is his — what, fifth? sixth? — self-released album of solo bedroom recordings, goony, genuinely funny musings that veer from sneering grunge punk to junk-funk hip-hop to falsetto folk strummers. If the sheer breadth of styles doesn't rev your engine, the sharply written content will.
"Major Arranger" starts the album off with a faux-Brit Notney accent smooshed under fedback guitars and a loping beat. It's a total headfake, thankfully, lacking the unobstructed cleverness found on more stripped-down numbers like "Henry Rollins" and the lightly James Browned breaks of "Midas Touch." "The Sequel," a short ditty about the consistent disappointment of sequels, gets a sequel in "The Sequel, Part 2," and with "Clone Envy," Timb delves into the metaphysical mystery lurking within his genes: "So I'll make a clone/With my Y chromosome/And then I can stay home/While I go out to eat." The cornerstone here is the semi-straightforward narrative of "Standing in an Open Parking Lot With Penis in My Hand," a brilliant, Beck-ish ramble about a former roommate and linguistic genius who's enamored of the f bomb. The song — and others on Anxiety — reveals Timb as the real budding genius here, a wordful tunesmith who makes being everywhere at once look all too easy. Find out more at
