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WED., DECEMBER 20, 2006
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2006 Innovators: Tim Hecker
by Andy Beta
Whether it's deconstructing David Lee Roth or melting down distorted guitars and laptops into evocative ambient washes, Canadian sound sculptor Tim Hecker has always exhibited — in addition to a healthy sense of humor — a fine sense of craftsmanship. This year’s Harmony in Ultraviolet was an unexpected highlight though, scaling peaks previously unglimpsed in the abstract electronic world, creating a real watermark in a field that includes Isis, Fennesz, Sunn O))) and much of the Touch roster.
We spoke with Hecker recently via e-mail.
eMusic: A friend wanted me to ask you a Canada-specific question: What is poutine?
Tim Hecker: Poutine is a heavenly orb of french fries, cheese (curds!) and gravy. It is a 3:00 AM winter special here. Two strands dominate Quebec: 1) either with beef gravy or BBQ sauce; 2) or the "Michigan," with sausage or ground beef. I grew up on the west coast so I learned to love poutine with aged white cheddar and a peppercorn sauce.
eMusic: Go figure that the Quebecoise version of poutine would be “healthier” and veg-friendly. Does such a mess correlate in any way to the music that comprises Harmony in Ultraviolet?
TH: I suppose you could say that church organ drone music played by goths is to Harmony what maybe poutine Québécoise would be to organic west-coast fun lovin' poutine, i.e., a bit of a decontextualized mess!
eMusic: I read that you quit a pencil-pushing government job in Canada and are currently working on your PhD. What in? Do you see your doctorate work bleeding into the next record?
TH: Communication Studies — working in history of sound and critical theory. No, I really wanted to keep some boundaries between the two. My scholarship is hopefully disciplined academic work and my music not bound to anything except my own fleeting aesthetic interests at the time. I suppose it bleeds through in some sort of unconscious, tacit way, kind of like how certain philosophers contaminate your mind and are impossible to get away from after your encounter with them. But no, I don't want to hand in a CD for my thesis or anything like that.
eMusic: Just where did the creation of HiUV fall between such immense undertakings?
TH: This record was made during the respite between my old and new lives. It was a period of great hope and inspiration. Sounds cheesy, but to liberate yourself from one set of chains feels quite nice. The record before [Mirages] was created in the dark silence of late night winter. Harmony, however, was [made in the] early morning, blue skies and crisp white-snow spring days. There was no regular work process. It was a real Gong Show of addition, subtraction, analog, digital, guitar pedals, software. I like to work in-between a bunch of approaches: running my computer into a distortion pedal, then back into a mixer which feeds back into the computer, which then comes out granular-pitch-shifted into a fuzz gate which is then reverbed and mixed with 5 other channels. I [would] wait one week to fish out the remarkable melodic/textural hooks and then start all over again to build up a piece around that motif.
eMusic: Does crafting an album bear a similar weight or does it become more of a release from more-serious endeavors like going for your doctorate?
TH: No, it was really a liberation from the apparatus, so to speak. To go from pushing documents to having a daily meditative musical practice is more rewarding than many things I can think of. Besides, having done this many records, the pressure is off. I could’ve easily sold the studio and become an amateur brewmaster. So for me, it was towards transcendental truth or bust.
We spoke with Hecker recently via e-mail.
eMusic: A friend wanted me to ask you a Canada-specific question: What is poutine?
Tim Hecker: Poutine is a heavenly orb of french fries, cheese (curds!) and gravy. It is a 3:00 AM winter special here. Two strands dominate Quebec: 1) either with beef gravy or BBQ sauce; 2) or the "Michigan," with sausage or ground beef. I grew up on the west coast so I learned to love poutine with aged white cheddar and a peppercorn sauce.
eMusic: Go figure that the Quebecoise version of poutine would be “healthier” and veg-friendly. Does such a mess correlate in any way to the music that comprises Harmony in Ultraviolet?
TH: I suppose you could say that church organ drone music played by goths is to Harmony what maybe poutine Québécoise would be to organic west-coast fun lovin' poutine, i.e., a bit of a decontextualized mess!
eMusic: I read that you quit a pencil-pushing government job in Canada and are currently working on your PhD. What in? Do you see your doctorate work bleeding into the next record?
TH: Communication Studies — working in history of sound and critical theory. No, I really wanted to keep some boundaries between the two. My scholarship is hopefully disciplined academic work and my music not bound to anything except my own fleeting aesthetic interests at the time. I suppose it bleeds through in some sort of unconscious, tacit way, kind of like how certain philosophers contaminate your mind and are impossible to get away from after your encounter with them. But no, I don't want to hand in a CD for my thesis or anything like that.
eMusic: Just where did the creation of HiUV fall between such immense undertakings?
TH: This record was made during the respite between my old and new lives. It was a period of great hope and inspiration. Sounds cheesy, but to liberate yourself from one set of chains feels quite nice. The record before [Mirages] was created in the dark silence of late night winter. Harmony, however, was [made in the] early morning, blue skies and crisp white-snow spring days. There was no regular work process. It was a real Gong Show of addition, subtraction, analog, digital, guitar pedals, software. I like to work in-between a bunch of approaches: running my computer into a distortion pedal, then back into a mixer which feeds back into the computer, which then comes out granular-pitch-shifted into a fuzz gate which is then reverbed and mixed with 5 other channels. I [would] wait one week to fish out the remarkable melodic/textural hooks and then start all over again to build up a piece around that motif.
eMusic: Does crafting an album bear a similar weight or does it become more of a release from more-serious endeavors like going for your doctorate?
TH: No, it was really a liberation from the apparatus, so to speak. To go from pushing documents to having a daily meditative musical practice is more rewarding than many things I can think of. Besides, having done this many records, the pressure is off. I could’ve easily sold the studio and become an amateur brewmaster. So for me, it was towards transcendental truth or bust.
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