If there’s one thing Tim Hecker has mastered, it’s consistency. He’s been mining the same formula for four albums now, and although they may seem very similar on the surface, closer attention reveals a certain glacial progress.
Hecker’s sound is similar to what I’d expect if Kevin Shields collaborated with the Hafler Trio. It’s a dense, swirling buzz of feedback, static and distant shortwave effluvia organized into something resembling music. At first, it seems random and homogenous, but listen deeper and you’ll find a wealth of carefully wrought detail. The washes of tempered noise and obfuscation hide the fact that all the underlying elements are carefully arranged and structured. This isn’t ambient music in that it demands close listening and scrutiny to resolve the fine details.
Harmony in Ultraviolet isn’t a great step forward so much as it’s a culmination and consolidation of Hecker’s strengths. Haunt Me… was a sprawling piece of eclecticism that, brilliant as it was, tended to jump around too much to allow the sort of total immersion it expected of the listener, but “The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Overproduction” seemed to predict what we’re hearing here.
The record is bookended by the complementary tracks “Blood Rainbow” and “Rainbow Blood,” which actually seem to be palindromes of each other. A cursory string melody repeats over a trebly drone, recalling last year’s Mirages, but there’s something more tightly-wound about it. The opener helps to build the tension into “Stags, Aircraft, Kings and Secretaries,” while the closing version siphons off the tension from the monumental “Whitecaps of White Noise.”
The phased and tuned guitar feedback that Hecker used on “The Work of Art…” is used just as propulsively here, but there’s no hint of resolution. It keeps pushing forward, and the melodic content comes off as an afterthought.
After the brief respite of “Pamplisest,” “Chimeras” utilizes an odd organ waltz that should be sedate, but the high-pitched drone bleeding through keeps things on edge. The distortion continues through “Dungeoneering,” shimmering like sunlight reflected off water. Over time, it recedes into echo and merges with a plaintive cello and the sound of a heartbeat as things cool down a bit.
“Pamplinsest II” is another short interlude, focused on the fractured piano timbres last heard on Radio Amor. “Spring Heeled Jack Flies Tonight” is a standout track, again with the melody intertwined with the subtle amplified roar. At times, the sparks fly close enough to burn, but the whole thing is tightly restrained. Like the rest of the album, it feels stretched and ready to explode before pulling itself back.
The four-part “Harmony in Blue” is sedate in comparison, a quiet piece that’s more consonant but still restless, its uncertainty submerged but still audible just beneath the surface.
“Radio Spiricom” also harkens back to Radio Amor with chopped bits of guitar harmonics and white noise punctuating a skeletal melody. It’s very sparse, almost to the point of being insubstantial, but it’s a quick respite before the album’s apex.
The two-part “Whitecaps and White Noise” lives up to its title. It’s one of the most overtly melodic things Hecker’s done, and although it uses a similar pallette to the one on Trade Winds, White Noise, it’s elevated here to huge proportions. It’s a varied and episodic piece beginning with washes of gated reverb that gradually phase into clustered cello samples. The whole thing is stretched taut before the rhythmic structure fades into a gentle organ drone, which merges and branches with a slight guitar figure. Towards the end, there’s a nearly untreated set of quiet arpeggios played on a piano.
So yeah, it’s a Tim Hecker record. No great sea-change or stylistic shift is present, but there’s some progress. If nothing else, he seems less afraid of overt melody. There’s still nothing identifiable as such here, but his practice of implying it has gotten better.
Unlike Mirages, which often seemed a bit gossamer, this is a more aggressive record and a good consolidation of Hecker’s strengths. If you’ve never heard Hecker’s work before, Haunt Me… or Radio Amor might be safer places to start, but for those willing to brave a bit of abstraction, this is a diverse and rewarding record.
Available from Kranky.