Tim Hecker - Ravedeath, 1972

Such a good album..

  On 2/6/2011 at 9:39 PM, remy marathe said:

  On 2/6/2011 at 6:15 PM, Enter a new display name said:

  On 2/6/2011 at 3:48 AM, remy marathe said:

hmmm. i must be missing something. i'm probably one of the bigger tim hecker fans on this board, but this album isn't doing anything for me. it's probably his least interesting album since mirages. harmony in ultraviolet and radio amor are two of my favorite albums of the last decade, but this is just rather samey sounding and dare i say it, boring. there's a couple of interesting sounds on it but overall, i'm pretty disappointed.

You sound really just like me, except I don't call this album boring or disappointing and I intend to give it some time.

 

well, opinions. i've listened to it all day today, in the car, on three hundred dollar headphones, on my hi fi. i'm waiting for the vinyl which i ordered, so maybe somehow that will change my opinion, but i doubt it. there are some good tracks. studio suicide and parts of in the air are interesting, but there's nothing here that matches harmony in blue or spring heeled jack or any of radio amor. the tracks just don't really go anywhere. i hate to be so dismissive, since hecker is probably my favorite musician right now, and i plan on giving this album some time, but my first impression is that i'm missing whatever aspects of the album seem to have the entire forum calling it omggreatestalbumEVAR!!

I know what you mean. Don't worry.

  On 2/6/2011 at 9:51 PM, Enter a new display name said:

  On 2/6/2011 at 9:39 PM, remy marathe said:

  On 2/6/2011 at 6:15 PM, Enter a new display name said:

  On 2/6/2011 at 3:48 AM, remy marathe said:

hmmm. i must be missing something. i'm probably one of the bigger tim hecker fans on this board, but this album isn't doing anything for me. it's probably his least interesting album since mirages. harmony in ultraviolet and radio amor are two of my favorite albums of the last decade, but this is just rather samey sounding and dare i say it, boring. there's a couple of interesting sounds on it but overall, i'm pretty disappointed.

You sound really just like me, except I don't call this album boring or disappointing and I intend to give it some time.

 

well, opinions. i've listened to it all day today, in the car, on three hundred dollar headphones, on my hi fi. i'm waiting for the vinyl which i ordered, so maybe somehow that will change my opinion, but i doubt it. there are some good tracks. studio suicide and parts of in the air are interesting, but there's nothing here that matches harmony in blue or spring heeled jack or any of radio amor. the tracks just don't really go anywhere. i hate to be so dismissive, since hecker is probably my favorite musician right now, and i plan on giving this album some time, but my first impression is that i'm missing whatever aspects of the album seem to have the entire forum calling it omggreatestalbumEVAR!!

I know what you mean. Don't worry.

lol

You guys are such contrarians. Not saying you are wrong, just an observation.

Not to worry Remy, it will hit you one day. And when it does, prepare to orgasmicafied.

Tim Hecker makes consistently underwhelming music

its a bummer you guys arent feeling it, this album is the best thing hes ever done

this delicate work is due every bit of praise it's received and will receive. what a wonderful achievement by mr hecker

Absolutely fantastic. Saw him at ATP and it was earsplittingly brutal... however this album is some achingly beautiful stuff. love it.

  On 2/6/2011 at 10:34 PM, Dan C said:

Tim Hecker makes consistently underwhelming music

heeey

  On 2/7/2011 at 12:36 AM, jhonny said:

Absolutely fantastic. Saw him at ATP and it was earsplittingly brutal... however this album is some achingly beautiful stuff. love it.

  jontosh2001 said:

Absolutely fantastic. Saw him at ATP and it was earsplittingly brutal... however this album is some achingly beautiful stuff. love it.

busted!!!!! :)

I feared that this would be "just another Hecker" and that fear did come true, though in a delightful way. I've yet to give it another spin, but I'm pretty confident it's one of his better releases. It's not perfect, but a god damn beautiful work if you ask me - might become my favorite some day. Thinking of his earlier works, there's often been some unfitting mood changes at wrong points, but it didn't happen with this one. It all held together until the very end, and I applaud that.

  On 2/7/2011 at 1:36 AM, eugene said:

  On 2/6/2011 at 10:34 PM, Dan C said:

Tim Hecker makes consistently underwhelming music

heeey

Hello

  On 2/6/2011 at 6:20 PM, MAXIMUS MISCHIEF said:

you guys need bigger speakers systems, this aint a headphones album

 

o well enter, ull see when u go to tim hecker live

i like listening to music on broken coby speakers. sounds much better that way. i master all of my music on some beat up off brand ipod docking station.

this is a big step forward for him. still his style, but i feel like he fell into a rut on AIC. i still love that album and have listened to it from start to finish so many times while writing, but ravedeath is immediately grabbing. his signature gated piano is still here :)

  On 2/6/2011 at 11:24 PM, MAXIMUS MISCHIEF said:

its a bummer you guys arent feeling it, this album is the best thing hes ever done

come on now.

  On 2/7/2011 at 3:36 AM, sheatheman said:

this is a big step forward for him. still his style, but i feel like he fell into a rut on AIC. i still love that album and have listened to it from start to finish so many times while writing, but ravedeath is immediately grabbing. his signature gated piano is still here :)

 

  On 2/6/2011 at 11:24 PM, MAXIMUS MISCHIEF said:

its a bummer you guys arent feeling it, this album is the best thing hes ever done

 

come on now.

you come on.

  On 2/7/2011 at 4:08 AM, MAXIMUS MISCHIEF said:

  On 2/7/2011 at 3:36 AM, sheatheman said:

this is a big step forward for him. still his style, but i feel like he fell into a rut on AIC. i still love that album and have listened to it from start to finish so many times while writing, but ravedeath is immediately grabbing. his signature gated piano is still here :)

 

  On 2/6/2011 at 11:24 PM, MAXIMUS MISCHIEF said:

its a bummer you guys arent feeling it, this album is the best thing hes ever done

 

come on now.

 

you come on.

i'm on, where are you?

Very abstract, there's a very prominent harmony between the artwork, the titles and the music. I feel like the music invokes the feeling of raw inspiration, like a vision in the night or something

  On 2/7/2011 at 5:53 AM, joew said:

Very abstract, there's a very prominent harmony between the artwork, the titles and the music. I feel like the music invokes the feeling of raw inspiration, like a vision in the night or something

spot on

hahah a vision in the night

damn rights

did you get that from this thread or did you actually just think of that combination of words

Did a first listen in the train today and I really like how it distorts your perception so everything (sun, people, emotions) are perceived more intense

Kranky is letting me down. I've been checking the website for the last few days but no Ravedeath.

:<

this album is fucking gorgeous. wow.

  On 2/7/2011 at 4:08 PM, Capsaicin said:

Kranky is letting me down. I've been checking the website for the last few days but no Ravedeath.

 

:<

Check now. It's up for order a week early as expected .

In the Air III is so beautiful I could cry

The gated piano rushes are just so lush

Here’s my unscientific take on it:

There’s noise, there’s feedback, there’s digitization/digital signal processing (dsp), and then there’s distortion. RD72 is the first of his albums to really have all four going on. Unfortunately, at times its happening almost to the point of cancellation. Factor in reverb, especially natural reverbs, and things start to change, if not distort right down to the levels clipping. Say it’s intended, fine... But I think its a distraction to an extent. This album feels more like a sketch to me.

We all know Tim Hecker is a master of sculpting with noise, feedback, and digital distortion. Okay. However, the unfortunate byproduct of recording RD72 live, might be the reverb itself. In some regards, its the thing that really makes this album completely different—more experiential, more physical, more immediate... More like a verb and less like an adjective/noun (melody and concept). On the contrary, the “liveness” to RD72 kind of undermines the “songness” of the tracks with its unintended pops and occasional lack of melody/passage.

I suspect this album is really more about the overall texture as a whole. But with that, I cant see how people can say this is a masterpiece or even a contender for album of the year (we’re in February people! Geez!). For the talk going into this album and all the concepts supposedly driving it, it doesn’t really seem like he’s exploring as many ideas within the songs themselves. It seems more like he is exploring the container in which the songs are produced (both the instrument and ethe media itself), the limitations therein, etc. I have to say, it’s an interesting exercise, seeing how it makes for a certain type of product. It’s like making paintings with just hues of blue.

If this album wasn’t recorded in a church and wasn’t live, would it still be as good as his past two?

This kind of reminds me of Autechre’s progress since 2005, even down to the reaction of the fans. Autechre stumbled on super reverb with Pro Radii on Untilted. They pushed it to its limit on Oversteps. They made an entire album around the limitations of the environment/tools and they explored a single thread to its natural end. We’re seeing the same thing here. Unfortunately, like Autechre, I see the same mistakes arising.

For both Autechre and Tim Hecker, it should be about either composition/song structure or it should be about its liveness—recapturing the moment in its entirety; not capturing it, going back and editing it, splicing it into songs, etc. If it is about the liveness or capturing the environment, release an album that is one track long. One 60+ minute exploration.

Ravedeath 1972 is Tim Hecker’s Quaristice. Just like when the little kids first were first introduced to Autechre with Untilted and they were so quick to say Quaristice was a masterpiece, I suspect the same people who are saying RD72 is a masterpiece or album of the year contender, only got into Tim Hecker within the past 3 years.

Regardless, in the case of both examples above, its like discussing the differences between different brands of bottled water. It’s there, but its not important. They still make you wet.