Tim Hecker, Daniel Lopatin

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 from a Tim Hecker record, the sense of diffuse, layered, analog-treated and digitally simulated space is just incredible, and paired with both his and Lopatin's feel for cinematic, heart-rending melody and complex harmonics 'Instrumental Tourist' is an impressive piece of work by any standards.