“Tide and Timber” is about leaving Seattle — the iron city, the ladder of stone — and crossing over to the Olympic Peninsula and Hood Canal, where the system cannot follow you. It’s a roots reggae meditation on the people who trade the weight of the city for salt air, cedarwood, and the rhythm of Puget Sound.

The “wide water” is the Hood Canal Bridge. The “living earth” is the old-growth forest floor of the Olympic Peninsula. The “shade of the branches” is the literal canopy of Western red cedar that gives the region its soul. Every line maps to a real geography and a real choice people make — leaving the tech corridors, the traffic, the noise of men — for something that heals.

The instrumentation honors the classic roots reggae tradition — heavy one-drop drum pattern, deep syncopated bass that drives from the gut, rhythmic organ bubbles that breathe with the riddim, and a soul-stirring melodica lead that wails like salt wind through cedar. The meditative 72 BPM tempo moves at the pace of waves lapping against a Hood Canal dock, the pace of breathing after the rush stops. The analog tape saturation gives everything a worn, lived-in texture — the way the Peninsula itself feels when you finally arrive.