Tim Hecker The Ravendeath 1972 2011 Album Review | Alternative Fruit

Tim Hecker
The Ravendeath 1972
2011
Kranky Records


A distorted long distance signal brings abstracted ambience in the form of floaty light melodies however some white noise fusion gives a creamy and degraded texture to what could be something different. It's as if we're only getting the first bit, depth and harmonics are lost in the translation between alien transmitters and low-fi receiving equipment. Piano-drop begins this ambient album in a whisk of sound that although is decayed to such high levels it's hard to tell if this is music at all, it's still on the positive side of relaxing. An art form indeed, more escapism from the contemporary and commercial is brought along in fluid rivers as the second instalment follows the suit of compressed and fuzz driven sonics.


Clever weaving of reality and suggested gaps in resolution give a quality of ethereal and dark destinations, although it is as if a lamp is being held for us as we delve deeper into the netherworld of electronic sound. The Canadian political analyst becomes the mythical synth and loop sculptor after hours and plays to eclectic crowds of electro connoisseurs the world over. Travelling to Iceland to record Ravendeath, alongside Ben Frost, it's no surprise to learn that Tim Hecker has toured with Sigur Ros, Iceland's next best thing to Bjork in exports.


The music takes influence from Hecker's thesis in urban noise, which earned him a place lecturing in sound culture. The delivery of the noise and non-musical elements is well mixed and it allows the motions of music to wash around hollowed out basins of almost nothingness in the stead of more classically sounding music. As a scored composition, Ravendeath creeps around and makes waves in many small directions. With each new pass of a track title, some of which are simply parts of larger works, In The Fog I, II, and III, for example, new experiments are conducted with various styles of sound and pitch. Drills and crushing scratches add in alongside organs and breathy synthesisers. A true landscape of sound is crafted in musical strangeness, it's worth exploring and for many it may well be exciting and vibrant.  

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