No Highs
The latest by Canadian composer Tim Hecker serves as a beacon of unease against the deluge of false positive corporate ambient currently in vogue. Whether taken as warning or promise, No Highs delivers – this is music of austerity and ambiguity, purgatorial and seasick. A jagged anti-relaxant for our medicated age, rough-hewn and undefined. Morse code pulse programming flickers like distress signals while a gathering storm of strings, noise, and low-end looms in the distance. Processed electronics shiver and shudder against pitch-shifting assemblages of crackling voltage, mantric horns (including exquisite modal sax by Colin Stetson), and cathedral keys. Throughout, the pieces both accrue and avoid drama, more attuned to undertow than crescendo. Hecker mentions “negation” as a muse of sorts – the sense of tumult without bombast, tethered ecstasies, an escape from escapism. His is an antagonism both brusque and beguiling, devoid of resolution, beckoning the listener ever deeper into its greyscale alchemies of magisterial disquiet.
The veteran ambient musician pushes back at the hollowing out of the form with a burly, physically imposing release peppered with moments of gentle beauty.
No Highs is described as Tim Hecker's reaction to the "false positive corporate ambient" featured in popular playlists on streaming services -- some of which have given major exposure to Hecker's own work.
Tim Hecker’s latest is full of gorgeous sounds, but never quite finds an identity for itself.
A sense of restlessness permeates the most stimulating material on Tim Hecker’s ‘No Highs.’ Read our review.
Full of alarms, arrhythmic pulses and deep bass, Hecker’s eerie work feels as if it’s bracing for cataclysm – but is nevertheless rich, warm and inviting