Tim Hecker is a Canadian ambient musician known for his sweeping, emotionally intense albums and usage of electronically processed instruments and field recordings. He got his start making IDM music as Jetone in the early 2000s, but quickly switched to ambient music under his own name, releasing his debut Haunt Me, Haunt Me Do It Again in 2001. Since then, he has released nine further studio recordings, plus two additional collaborative albums, all to wide critical acclaim.
The sound of his early works relied heavily on samples from television and film, field recordings, and drones, all combined into a dense collage of richly textured ambient music. As his career continued, he began incorporating elements of electronically treated instruments, which is perhaps what he is currently most well-known for. This sound has led him to craft albums which are praised for their overwhelming emotional intensity and cinematic scope. Additionally, his records are also known for their highly conceptual nature, with each record containing its own unique idea which is expanded on through the music.
Discography:
As Jetone
- Autumnnumonia (2000)
- Ultramarin (2001)
- Sundown (2006)
As Tim Hecker
- Haunt Me, Haunt Me Do It Again (2001)
- Radio Amor (2003)
- Mirages (2004)
- Harmony in Ultraviolet (2006)
- Fantasma Parastasie (2008) (with Aidan Baker)
- An Imaginary Country (2009)
- Ravedeath, 1972 (2011)
- Instrumental Tourist (2012) (with Daniel Lopatin)
- Virgins (2013)
- Love Streams (2016)
- Konoyo (2018)
- Anoyo (2019)
- No Highs (2023)
Tropes related to this artist
- Bookends: Harmony in Ultraviolet begins with the short intro "Rainbow Blood", and concludes with its expanded version "Blood Rainbow". Similarly, An Imaginary Country begins with "100 Years Ago", and ends with "200 Years Ago".
- Brown Note: As overwhelming as his music can be on record, it's nothing compared to live performances, where he plays at a volume some have compared to that of Sunn O)))
- Concept Album: Tim is extremely fond of this, as basically every album is centered around a core concept, either musically or thematically
- Haunt Me, Haunt Me Do It Again samples heavily from television shows, and was inspired by Walter Benjamin's essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction".
- Radio Amor was inspired by a boat ride Tim took off the coast of Honduras, and as such has a seafaring atmosphere.
- Mirages is based around processed electric guitar samples.
- An Imaginary Country has a very pastoral sound.
- Ravedeath, 1972 is about the "destruction of music" according to Tim, and features a desolate atmosphere centered around electronically manipulated organic instruments, such as pianos and organs.
- Virgins is his darkest work to date, and his first to utilise live instrumental sessions. Its primary instrumental feature is the use of the "virginal", a harpsichord that can only play one note.
- Love Streams is a lighter and more melodic work, built around choir vocals that have been processed and fed through vocoders.
- Konoyo and Anoyo are a two-part record that loosely follow a journey through the spiritual world. Musically, it is based around live performances by a Japanese gagaku ensemble.
- No Highs is "a beacon of unease against the deluge of false positive corporate ambient currently in vogue", according to the liner notes.
- Darker and Edgier: His records got gradually darker and more intense as his career progressed, culminating in the back-to-back releases of Ravedeath, 1972 and Virgins.
- Distinct Double Album: An interesting example with Konoyo and Anoyo, which are from the same sessions and flow together extremely well, but were released roughly six months apart. They do have somewhat different approaches to their sound however, with Konoyo being heavily processed and intense, while Anoyo is lighter and allows the gagaku ensemble's performances to be showcased organically. Taken together the full album is over 90 minutes long, but released separately they are Tim's longest and shortest albums respectively.
- Downer Ending: Ravedeath, 1972 completely falls to pieces with the desolate three-part "In the Air" suite.
- Drone of Dread: Well he is a drone musician. He has a knack for making drones that sound heavenly as well, however.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: His material as Jetone is IDM, significantly more active and techno-influenced than the cinematic ambient epics he makes now.
- Epic Rocking: Unlike many other ambient artists, his pieces are of an unusually reasonable length. However, notable examples are the 10:34 "Azure Azure", the 10:40 "Incurably Optimistic!", and "In Mother Earth Phase" and "Across to Anoyo", which are both on Konoyo and run 10:26 and 15:25 respectively.
- Additionally, the three multi-part suites on Ravedeath, 1972 ("In the Fog", "Hatred of Music", and "In the Air") would all run over ten minutes if combined.
- Fading into the Next Song: A constant across his discography, with some of his albums flowing as one continuous piece.
- Gratuitous Japanese: Konoyo and Anoyo, which mean "this world" and "that world" respectively, and are usually used to refer to the physical realm and the spiritual realm.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: The track titles from Konoyo and Anoyo can be construced as poems.
- Konoyo:
This life
In Death Valley
Is a rose petal of the dying crimson light
Keyed out
In mother earth phase
A sodium codec haze
Across to Anoyo- Anoyo:
That world
Is but a simulated blur
Step away from Konoyo
Into the void
Not alone
You never were - Lighter and Softer: After the insufferably intense Ravedeath, 1972 and often depressing and frightening Virgins, Love Streams is a light, airy record full of melody and glistening drones.
- An Imaginary Country also serves as a brief pastoral reprieve between Harmony in Ultraviolet and the aforementioned duo of records.
- Live Album: He has one, 2005's ''Mort aux Vaches'', a limited-edition release of which only 1000 copies were printed. It consists of a single 42-minute piece on the record, but has two distinct sections.
- Longest Song Goes Last: Mirages ends with the 10:40 "Incurably Optimistic!", and Konoyo ends with his longest song to date, the 15:25 "Across to Anoyo". A comparatively minor example is Love Streams ending with the 6:16 "Black Phase".
- Minimalistic Cover Art: Compared to the cluttered monolith of trash that comprises the cover of Konoyo, its sequel album Anoyo is a stark black cover with only a small, cube-shaped Earth.
- New Sound Album: Ravedeath, 1972 marks his first true foray into the processed live instrumentation sound he is most known for now.
- Real Life Writes the Plot: Radio Amor was heavily influenced by a boat journey Tim took off the coast of Honduras, and the album contains many field recordings of dock ambiance, such as people working on ships, and birds.
- Rearrange the Song: His 2011 EP Dropped Pianos serves as a companion piece to the same year's Ravedeath, 1972, taking the piano samples from it and crafting pieces more akin to modern classical compositions.
- Sampling: One of the primary tools in his arsenal. It's most notable on his earlier works, which sample directly from sources such as television, as well as the dockworker sounds of Radio Amor. Later albums have him take samples from live instrumental sessions and contort them into barely recognizable versions of themselves.
- Scary Musician, Harmless Music: Inverted. Tim is very quiet and reserved, but his music is often emotionally draining and heavy. See him live and marvel at how such a quiet man can produce such ear-shredding sounds.
- Siamese Twin Songs: His albums are usually intended to be listened to as a cohesive whole, so the vast majority of his songs qualify.
- Surprisingly Gentle Song: Love Streams is a surprisingly gentle album, sandwiched between some of his darkest and most intense work.
- Textless Album Cover: Between Virgins and Anoyo, he didn't put the artist and record titles on the front cover.
