Anoyo - Tim Hecker: Review

Tim Hecker

is a long running ambient and experimental electronic music producer that has been working out of Canada since the early 2000's. His big breakthrough moment in ambient music came in 2006 with Harmony In Ultraviolet a fantastic ambient piece that helped gain him attention and make classics out of a few of his earlier projects. But Hecker had another breakthrough moment when he dropped what was seemingly his masterpiece and full potential on 2011's brilliant Ravedeath, 1972. The album was a reinvention of sound pulling from dark and atmospheric noise to create patient but incredibly rewarding ambient compositions. This continued on the even darker follow-up Virgins but the train seemed to fall off there. After a break he released 2016's Love Streams one of his least acclaimed releases of his entire career. A switch-up in production found a lot of fans feeling like the compositions were a let down and the details and textures that usually make a Tim Hecker album special were absent. But when he returned with 2018 Konoyo a record that may be even more experimental than his most acclaimed works, his fans flocked quickly. 

Review By Lavender:

As far as modern ambient goes Ravedeath, 1972 is an absolutely essential piece of its canon and one of the best electronica albums in a year full of them. Since then there has obviously been ups and downs but the album with which Anoyo is connected to, 2018's Konoyo was one of my favorite ambient albums of last year and contained a lot of material I enjoyed. The shrill and piercingly high pitched keys and long developing moments of very patient sounds reminded me how outside the box Hecker can be. This combined with the two singles I enjoyed in the promotion for this album gave me more than enough reasons to be excited to dive into Anoyo. 

The lead single for this album was That World a track that I enjoyed quite a bit that works in some amazing textures and a great detailed composition. It is a little bit of a return to form from Konoyo, but that doesn't mean it's more tame. It features pulling in very different directions and a wide variety of interpolated sounds that help make the soundscape a complex and engaging one throughout, it has definitely been one of my favorite ambient tracks this week. The second single serves as the closing track here You Never Were one of the most spacious songs here. I thought it was decent as a single and it grew on me a little bit given how interesting the dichotomy between the natural sounding strings and the stark mechanical effects that glitch and distort them. The composition is a little bit generic by ambient standards but it's ultimately effective especially as a closing song. 

Surprisingly there are only four other songs here that make up one of the shortest Tim Hecker albums to date. What is far more surprising is that none of the other tracks here last longer than 5 minutes, a strange irregularity for ambient music but one that usually works. In A Simulated Blur has some huge bellowing percussion met with shrill keys that make an incredibly stark contrast. Given how short the track is there isn't a ton of build you're sort of just thrown headfirst into it and honestly it works really well and I like this track a lot. Into The Void is another good song that sets up a tone shift straight away with some very frontal piano, unfortunately it can't keep its momentum up for the entire track and fades out rather than going out on a high note. 

Ironically that track Step Away From Konoyo is the one here that most resembles Konoyo. A bit of a by the numbers ambient track it's short but fulfilling and brings back the swelling keys and shrill, high pitched breakdowns that I enjoyed so much on Konoyo. The only track I didn't enjoy here was Not Alone, which is unfortunate as the booming bass and industrial percussion the track opens with is very enticing. Once this sinks out though the song doesn't have a whole lot to offer and seems to just barely scrape by its already short length. Thankfully this track is just a few minutes of an otherwise very compelling project. 

Anoyo isn't a revolutionary piece for ambient music or for Tim Hecker's discography but what is here is pretty solid. At just 39 minutes it doesn't have a whole ton of time to make an impression but the big moments that open and close the record are effective and some of the more experimental and indulgent detours in between land as well. Anoyo goes toe to toe with pretty much any other ambient or drone projects I've heard this year and is one you do not want to miss if you're a fan of any of those genres. 7.5/10

Best Track: that world

For more ambient check out my review of William Basinski's On Time Out Of Time here.