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Recommended by us on 25th February 2011
Note: videos may not match the album...
...according to our Brian on Fri 25 Feb, 2011.
There's certain music that I find near impossible to "review" at work - analysis & contemplation needs to be done in an environment where there are near to no distractions and somewhere where you can amp it up to your hearts content. Like what i'm doing now with Tim Hecker's new one, my enjoyment enhanced further avec cup o' tea in hand! I've always been in awe of this chap's shuddering, all-enveloping sound worlds. He's been tampering with an in situ church organ around Iceland's capital by all accounts, assisted by fellow dark ambienteer Ben Frost. My Father used to play the church organ, hence i've never been all that fond of the racket the bloody thing blurts out of it's massive pipes, but with a handful of recent excursions in left-field sound-art tipping their collective caps respectfully towards these hulking, virtually immovable behemoths, I find myself warming considerably. Especially when this lad starts manipulating drones & teasing shards of sonic excitement out of what is often a very pompous, solemn sounding battle axe of an instrument; beautifully layering grinding astral fuzz & feral waves of white noise all over the ever-evolving palette of zen-like notes he coaxes, seduces & stretches from his "primary source". My dad must have been playing it wrong, I dunno. This is totally wonderful stuff, even though I'm listening to this on a shitty ripped MP3 that keeps on stuttering, distorting and freezing, the bit rate of which is probably lower than my IQ (so pretty bloody shoddy sounding) but it doesn't particularly dull the essence of what is a blinding exercise in abstract composition. Too feisty to be ambient, too atmospheric to be noise. This is a heady, cerebral journey that your ears will never thank you enough for!!
Tim Hecker 5 out of fuckin' 5, go on my son...
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 wooden room, and also a pagan work of physical resonance within a space once reserved for the hallowed breath of the divine. While the title of the piece Hatred of Music might be a clue, the album is also partly an attempt to confront a pervasive negativity surrounding music. Historical rituals of destroying pianos, mountains of pirated CDRs pushed by bulldozers in Eastern Europe, or the melancholy of the digital music era began as sideline motifs which quickly informed the work on this record. They also really didn't at all.
Despite that the context is wide open in such a form of musical abstraction, the substance of these immersive compositions showcases Hecker's continued mastery of organizing sound into a visceral near entity. It is an almost physical presence that the listener feels as much as hears. This work is a significant contribution to Hecker's oeuvre, one which spans over ten years of musical production. Ravedeath, 1972 is an enigmatic document of beauty and force.
The album was recorded mostly over the period of one day in July of 2010. Iceland-based musician Ben Frost assisted
with the engineering and performs on this recording.
FOR FANS OF: Eluvium, Ben Frost, Pan American, Nadja
1. The Piano Drop
2. In The Fog I-II
3. In The Fog III
4. No Drums
5. Hatred of Music I
6. Hatred of Music II
7. Analog Paralysis, 1978
8. Studio Suicide, 1980
9. In The Air I-III
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