Tim Hecker, An Imaginary Country
Canadian composer transforms his signature waves of processed sound into something nearly orchestral
A writer colleague recently summed up Canadian laptop composer Tim Hecker in a reductive — and Twitter'd — equation: "As always, shoegaze minus guitar, drums, vocals." Which, should your math skills fail you, leaves you only with smears of noise. Whereas guitar-based peers like Christian Fennesz continue to emphasize avant-pop substructures and Oren Ambarchi trolls deeper into black-metal overtones with their work, Hecker has maintained a singular sweeping vision that begins with Loveless yet continues to reverberate into the present. Though with the man's fifth effort, An Imaginary Country, it might be time to reconsider the genre tag getting distilled.
While still grounded in waves of pure sound (no doubt run through more filters than a Jersey water processing plant so as to become crystalline), An Imaginary Country feels like nothing short of an orchestral work, though naturally one minus the strings, toms, woodwinds and conductor's baton. Hecker leaves only the swells and crests of such massive symphonic peaks and movements intact. Much like the outstanding Harmony in the Ultraviolet, it's unhelpful to dissect this album into segments, though titles like "Sea of Pulses," "Paragon Point," and "Currents of Electrostasy" are evocative enough at capturing the natural forces coursing through the work. Abstracted yet curiously cartographical, it offers a glimpse of a breath-arresting vista in a new world of sound.
