- A look into the methods of a modern master of experimental electronic music.
- Tim Hecker, the Canadian-born sound artist, has lately enjoyed filling concert halls with coloured fog. His career can be summarised by the mix of disorientation and extreme volume on display at his live shows, whose sound could be described as chaos with a patina of melody. Though his 2012 album Ravedeath, 1972 landed him a Juno Award and a position in NPR's list of top 100 composers under 40, in conversation the LA resident flits easily between high and low brow. In a rare recorded interview, he tells Matt McDermott how the sonic basis for his latest LP, Love Streams, involved running 15th century liturgical music through Melodyne and instructing clarinetists to play "more like Chewbacca."
However he chooses to frame it, Hecker's albums are serious experimental works that carry an uncommon weight. A longtime Kranky affiliate, he recently made the move to venerated indie label 4AD for Love Streams, a record Andy Beta said shows Hecker at the "apex of [his] sculptural abilities." Hecker here speaks to the concepts and (oblique) strategies behind his work while also revealing a simple goal to form "vivid pictures with sound."
TracklistTim Hecker - Radio Spiricom
Tim Hecker - Violet Monumental I