Tim Hecker - Ravedeath 1972 2xLP

Label: Kranky

Our Review:

When listening to Tim Hecker, it's practically impossible to hear samples, or instruments, or anything really, other than the amazing organic soundworld that Hecker has created. The constituent parts are rendered wholly unrecognizable. They are layers or colors or pieces of the new whole. Hecker's sound is transformative and transcendent, evocative of other times, other places, lost worlds, lost loves and forgotten memories. It does of course have elements of a forgotten past in it's crumbling decayed sound quality, and washed out ethereal ambience. It also manages to be melodic, active, and alive it its own way.

For Ravedeath 1972, Tim Hecker took up residence at a church in Iceland, using that building's pipe organ as its main instrument, augmented by synthesizer, piano, feedback. This is not just atmospheric but emotional and infused with a definite pathos. The record opens with a super corrosive bit of blurred ambience. The sound decays and crumbles. The melodies pulse and undulate just below the surface with a gorgeous balance between warm melodic drift and caustic psychedelic haze. From there on out, the album sprawls and shimmers in epic expanses of warm whirring melodies. The abstracted presence of the organ lends the sound a choral gravitas, rendering Ravedeath 1972 darkly cinematic. It's akin to a score for some lost art film, all deep shadows and strange shapes, of empty streets and abandoned cities, all the lens flares, and warm distorted flutter, the fuzzy out of focus over saturated colors. So utterly and breathtakingly gorgeous.