biographical info
Thursday, February 26, 2009. 10am: Ryan McNally and Kyle Cashen sit in a fort made of cardboard boxes, scrap lumber, thrift store bed sheets and chicken-wire. Among the second-hand lamps, rugs, and video game consoles the two have come together for an art exhibition about the dark days of winter. The theme resonates with everyone who experiences the chill of winter in Canada, but is particularly poignant in the band’s birthplace of Whitehorse, Yukon.
Old Time Machine started here as the art-show contribution of a bluesman and a bedroom-musician. The unlikely duo works to blend McNally’s studies of finger style traditional blues with Cashen's experience crafting ethereal soundscapes to create familiar but distinctly original music.
Their work started when Ryan put forward a handful of songs departing from his solo writing. Kyle eagerly filled spaces with reverb-soaked vocals and backbeats. With a handful of songs and a mountain of stringed instruments, analog machines and effects, drums, and mics, between them, McNally and Cashen began combining traditional sounding folk structures with ghostly harmonies and vintage electronics.