Tim Hecker
No Highs
The latest by Canadian composer Tim Hecker serves as a beacon of unease against the deluge of false positive corporate ambient currently in vogue. Whether taken as warning or promise, No Highs delivers – this is music of austerity and ambiguity, purgatorial and seasick. A jagged anti-relaxant for our medicated age, rough-hewn and undefined.
Morse code pulse programming flickers like distress signals while a gathering storm of strings, noise, and low-end looms in the distance. Processed electroni…
Norberg/Apondalifa
**shipping the next week** Two of Hecker rarest and most sought after EPs, finally reissued in LP, both of the releases have been out of print ever since selling out almost immediately after being released, so this reissue should be a treat for those longing after these two EPs having missed out the first time round In 2015, Room40 celebrates 15 years of editions and events; as part of the celebrations, the label is reissuing a number of editions in various formats that are out of print…
Mirages
First time this classic Tim Hecker album has been available on vinyl. Incredibly rich, sumptuous album from Tim Hecker, layering his particular blend of organic ambience with slivers of piano, found sounds and the quiet hum of abandoned machinery. Playing counterpart to the processed acoustic transmissions of Fennesz, Hecker takes a much darker route, only offering relief from the mass of textures he concocts with deep buried remnants of melody and light. As a follow-up to Mille Plateaux's subli…
Virgins
Virgins was recorded during three periods in 2012, mostly in Reykjavik, Montreal and Seattle, using ensembles in live performance. The sound palette of this work is wider, almost 'percussive' and tighter sounding than previous works. While this album remains committed to a painterly form of musical abstraction, it is also a record of restrained composition recorded live primarily in intimate studio rooms. This record employs woodwinds, piano and synthesizers towards an effort at doing what digit…
Instrumental Tourist
Instrumental Tourist' is one of the year's most anticipated electronic music albums. The meeting of established artist Tim Hecker and studio magician Daniel Lopatin aka Oneohtrix Point Never at his Software Studio yields an otherworldly and near symphonic suite apparently conducted "...to mimic the tropes and techniques of jazz-based improvisation, with little preparation prior", effecting a wide-eyed and fascinating sound as dramatic and enchanting as any we've heard this year. As you'd expect …
Harmony In Ultraviolet
This is the first proper vinyl release for Tim Hecker's breakthrough 2006 album. At the time of original issue, there was a small run of a few hundred vinyl copies done by a small German label, but this was pressed on an inferior sounding single LP which was much too short for the length of the album, not to mention the wide dynamic range of the recording. This new version is mastered at 45rpm over four sides for maximum sound quality. Full color gatefold sleeve.
Dropped Pianos
This Tim Hecker release is composed of sketch pieces recorded in 2010 in preparation for what would become the Ravedeath, 1972 album. All of the compositions are piano driven and minimal in nature. This is not a new Tim Hecker album, but rather a peek behind the curtains into the working process. That these pieces stand on their own as compelling soundworks is a testament to the fact that Tim Hecker is at the absolute top of his game at the moment, and has been for years.
Ravedeath, 1972
OUSTANDING!!! Tim Hecker's latest work approaches a form of secular musical transcendentalism from within the battered temple of spirituality. Recorded in a church in Reykjavik, Iceland and using a pipe organ as the primary sound source, this new piece is essentially a live recording. In reality, it exists in a nether world between captured live performance and meticulous studio work, melding the two approaches to sonic artifice as a unity. It is in parts a document of air circulating within a w…
Haunt Me, Haunt Me Do It Again
Restocked, edition is limited to 750 copies. Tim Hecker needs much less of an introduction today than he did when he released his debut recording Haunt Me nearly ten years ago; he now easily holds his own with top tier electronic artists from around the world. Despite its age the album remains interesting and vital. While not nearly as complex as more recent outings such as Harmony in Ultraviolet and Imaginary Country, it gives a very clear view into the artist’s approach and style. Haunt Me…
An Imaginary Country
Double LP version: An Imaginary Country continues from the trajectory of his last album, the critically acclaimed Harmony in Ultraviolet, while also showing a few new tricks. Tim has incorporated more pulses into this work and also works with a sound palette including overdriven mellotron strings and synthesizer. At times this album is less overtly aggressive than previous works, but the notion that this is pastoral work would be dead wrong as there are plenty of the agitated crescendos that he …
Norberg
Recorded at the Norberg Festival (Sweden) amidst the mineshafts and cluttered buildings strewn throughout parts the city, this 21 minute live piece summarises much of what makes Tim Hecker’s music so vital and compelling. Adept at counter-pointing the most ferocious of distorted platters with smooth beds of ambient sound and potent melodic overtones, Tim Hecker creates music with a vast depth. On Norberg, this depth seems almost endless, as layer upon layer of sound are compiled into a swelling …
Mort aux vaches
Tim Hecker is not be confused with Mego's Florian Hecker, but is rather the alter ego of techno maverick Jetone. As Jetone he has released a full length for Pitch cadet aswell as the brand new cd Ultamarin for Force Tracks. There are certainly similarities to the likes of Angelo Badlementi, Fennesz, Gas and Oval, but overall the sound is incredibly unique. Tim Hecker has managed to create some of the most memorable ambient music in the last few years. Much like the Austrian guitar-lap top experi…