Tim Hecker
Virgins
Kranky
Nov 15, 2013 Web Exclusive
Upon the release of 2011’s Ravedeath, 1972, the plaudits extended to Tim Hecker seemed to know no end. The Canadian experimentalist had taken the sky-facing, blanketed ambient music of Brian Eno and Stars of the Lid and thrust it into the ground—all of a sudden this rhythmless music was intense, creepy, and macabre.
That much remains the same on Virgins. But there’s something more upfront about this follow-up—where the violent tidal wave of Ravedeath, 1972 carried the listener away, Virgins is more likely to drag you by your earlobes. Hecker’s assembled sounds no longer evade attention by disintegrating behind a digital smoke screen. Instead, they’re more palpable, each more autonomous. Take “Live Room,” built around a repeated, clattering piano motif, over which blasts of distortion take turns throttling one another—on Ravedeath, 1972 the same track might have homogenized these aspects, leaving an undifferentiated whole. But here, each sound has its own identity, fighting for space in the sonic field.
There’s little about Virgins that should come as much of a surprise following Ravedeath, 1972. It marks a natural progression—a little more defined, a little less of a homogeneous whole, but still a sound world that’s unmistakably Hecker’s own. (www.sunblind.net)
Author rating: 7/10
Average reader rating: 9/10
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