a r t i s t : Tim Hecker
t i t l e : Atlas
d a t e : 2007
l a b e l : Audraglint
c a t : AG117
s o u r c e : 10" Vinyl
g e n r e : Ambient
r l s. d a t e : Jan/2008
t r a c k s : 02
b i t r a t e : VBRkbps
s i z e : 30,2 MB
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It's hard to know what to say about Tim Hecker that you won't
already know. Afterall, it can't be that long since we were
raving on about his Norberg live CD-R for Room40, but Atlas
marks a real advancement in Hecker's musical evolution. While
much of the Montreal-based soundsculptor's recent output has
delved further and further into nebulous, plume-like noise -
riddled with droning undercurrents, Atlas features a far more
emphatic use of real instruments. The distortion and haze is
still very much a part of Hecker's modus operandi, but spouts
of melody erupt from this music's molten core. Chiming
passages of electric guitar feature prevalently throughout
'Atlas One', while on the B-side, 'Atlas Two' begins with the
kind of exquisitely filtered ambience you'd hear from Boards
Of Canada at the height of their powers. Buried in there
somewhere is a quivering mass of piano that slowly irons
itself out into an expanse of glowing tonal sumptuousness,
only to die out gracefully, evaporating into a rasping static.
Gorgeous music - Essential Purchase! - boomkat
You put music by Montreal's Tim Hecker on the headphones and
go for a walk around your neighborhood, and all of a sudden
your other senses are heightened. The colors of the leaves are
more vibrant; the stench wafting from an alley dumpster has an
extra note of pungency; the sunlight on your face feels a
little warmer. His music is designed for immersion, and it has
a tendency to transform the space in which it's heard. The
first time I listened to last year's Harmony in Ultraviolet I
was riding on a bus, sitting in back, feeling the rumble of
the engine beneath my seat. The windows had a plastic coating
of some kind that gave everything an orange tint. As we idled
at the corner, the glass shook and warped and it looked like a
huge, brightly-colored earthquake outside, and the music
reinforced the idea that the ground would rupture at any
moment.
So anyway. I've missed Tim Hecker a bit this year, but he
returns with a vinyl-only 10" EP later this month. Atlas
consists of two tracks, each in the ten-minute range. Here we
have the A-side, "Atlas One", which combines shifting drone,
feedback, and plenty of digital crackle with random-sounding
clusters of guitar harmonics that sound like they're being
played by a gusty wind. Rather than building to a big peak, as
he sometimes does, this track feels more like one of his dense
travelogues, a steady unspooling of richly-textured tone and
color. The pictures to go with it are up to you. -pitchfork
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01-Atlas One [11:20]
02-Atlas Two [10:14]
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21:34 min