Vancouver-born, Montreal-based composer Tim Hecker is one of the most notable figures in modern ambient and drone. The beloved sound sculptor released his last album, An Imaginary Country, in 2009 and followed it up with a reissue of his debut album Haunt Me earlier this year. He's clearly spent 2010 working on new material, as 2011 will see the release of a new studio LP.

The record is called Ravedeath, 1972, and based on the track titles, it sounds like a particularly morose affair. Songs like "Hatred of Music: I-II," "Analog Paralysis, 1978" and "Studio Suicide, 1980" suggest their is a seriously bummed-out dude behind the washes of noise and swirling soundscapes.

Kranky will issue Ravedeath, 1972 on February 14. The artist will also spend a portion of his December on tour in Europe, the dates of which are available below.

Ravedeath, 1972:

1. "The Piano Drop"

2. "In the Fog: I-III"

3. "No Drums"

4. "Hatred of Music: I-II"

5. "Analog Paralysis, 1978"

6. "Studio Suicide, 1980"

7. "In the Air: I-III"

Sweet. An Imaginary Country was my introduction to Hecker and made me a fan. Lookin' forward to the new one.

He's playing here tomorrow and I have to miss it. Weak as shit.

no love here?

I just haven't got around to listening yet. How do you like it, 'bain?

I need to check this out.

Immersive. Haunting.

Finally got to give this one a proper listen, and although I prefer the more eerie stuff like An Imaginary Country, it's still great.

I've downloaded this but I had some other stuff to listen to that's kept me busy, will get around to it very soon.

From the little bits I sampled, it sounded really good.

Tim Hecker
Ravedeath, 1972
[Kranky; 2011]
8.6

There are plenty of synth and drone artists that make epic, transportive music, but one of the unique things about Tim Hecker is his conceptual ability. Each of his records, from the cinematic rush of Harmony in Ultraviolet to the dreamed-up cartography of An Imaginary Country, explores a specific theme, often in great detail. When he talked to us last month about the artwork for his latest LP, Ravedeath, 1972, Hecker mentioned that he'd been consumed with the idea of sonic decay. "I became obsessed with digital garbage," he said. "Like when the Kazakstan government cracks down on piracy and there's pictures of 10 million DVDs and CDRs being pushed by bulldozers."

That idea, the notion of music as a cheapened, battered object, touches nearly every aspect of Ravedeath, 1972, a dark and often claustrophobic record that is arguably Hecker's finest work to date. The album is based on a single day's worth of recordings in a church in Reykjavik, Iceland, where Hecker used a groaning pipe organ to lay down the foundation for its tracks. (Throughout, you can hear the vastness of this place, as sounds ricochet around, bounce off the rafters.) With help from Iceland-based producer Ben Frost-- whose ominous By the Throat is a touchstone here-- Hecker then finished the record in studio, digitally adding synth wash and wailing shoegaze crunch to his live recordings.

The result is a strange hybrid that lives somewhere between the digital and material realms, and it's remarkable how seamlessly the two are combined. For example, in a track like "In the Fog II", it's difficult to distinguish between the organic church sounds and the processed ones that came after. But while there is harmony between the source material, Ravedeath, 1972 is by no means about prettiness or tranquility. Hecker pits noises against one another in such a way that creates a constant push and pull between discord and beauty. It's a bit like William Basinski's Disintegration Loops, but instead of music aging over time, this is far more combative-- like these songs are being attacked from the inside out.

It's an unusual concept but relevant given the rate at which music is consumed and discarded these days. More important than the record's ideology, though, is what Hecker does with it-- the weight, atmosphere, and contrast he builds into these songs. Take for example the "In the Fog" suite, where over three tracks, Hecker lets dissonant squall threaten an undulating organ drone until it's taken over by wailing guitar noise in third passage. Or the two-part "Hatred of Music", which recalls an Oneohtrix Point Never synth shimmer before it disintegrates into distant industrial creaks. In each case it's not just about the wild, unearthly sounds he creates but the force with which they move around the mix.

Hecker is also smart with pacing and knows when to dial things back or add in softer, interstitial numbers when things start to become overwhelming. That's the case in the record's back half where he uses open-ended pieces to achieve the same foreboding effect. "Studio Suicide, 1980" is almost dreamy but has a sinister undercurrent, sounding something like the more punishing moments of My Bloody Valentine's "Only Shallow" heard through the walls of a neighbor's apartment. I wouldn't go so far as to call songs like this and "Analog Paralysis, 1978", which has a similar celestial vibe, "ambient," but they are subtler than those in the first half and give the album a sense of balance and a natural arc.

If you buy into the concept of Ravedeath, 1972 as an examination of music threatened by technology, there are pretty clear threads that pop up over the course of the record to support that. For one, it seems that the organ sounds Hecker captured back in that Rejkjavik church represent a certain purity of sound and that the digital noise battering it throughout act as the enemy, the corrosive effect. There's an ongoing struggle between the two that's mirrored in the menacing song titles and gripping cover art. It's important, then, that the album closes with "In the Air III", a track that features almost no interference whatsoever, just the plinking organ by itself. If I'm reading it right, it feels like Hecker's point is that music, in its purest form, survives no matter what you throw at it.

— Joe Colly, February 18, 2011

i listened to it last night when i came home loaded

its kinda cool and all but its more like background music to me.. i cant ride around to it, with no vocals and all..

Really? Sounds like perfect party music to me.

this

i got bugs, ambient
ambient, i got bugs

This is really, really great.

Besides The King of Limbs, I've mostly been listening to this since last Friday and I sort of agree. I still get an eerie, foreboding vibe, but here the noise often sizzles and lets the piano and organ pierce through. I like Hecker's fuller-bodied, roaring noise more. Like you said, it's still great, though.

I kinda like this. I'm pretty new to "it", but yeah, there's a lot happening in there.

Nice that more people are enjoying Tim.

Here's a song from 2010, called Apondalifa, it was an ep release, this track made my days better:

Stream Tim Hecker's Dropped Pianos

As though we didn't already know Tim Hecker was truly one of the greats, we're given further evidence when his rough sketches hold up as memorable works of art in their own right. His latest release, Dropped Pianos, is a collection of minimal, piano-centered compositions that ended up as the genesis for 2011's zoned in masterpiece, Ravedeath, 1972, and is available for stream below. For fans of Hecker's previous work, Pianos offers an interesting divergence in color. The piano is remarkably exposed in each track and incorporates less of the distorted, sinister edge that plays a vital role in some of Hecker's other notable pieces. His allowance of vulnerability, his willingness to lay himself bare, works in his favor and makes what could have been merely a passing curiosity into a moving document of a visionary hard at work. --Matt Sullivan, Altered Zones

http://alteredzones.com/posts/2024/stre ... d-pianosi/



this guy....i dont have words to express his meaning

i dont have the right actually

god alive