{"id":8112,"date":"2013-12-03T17:48:24","date_gmt":"2013-12-03T17:48:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/?p=8112"},"modified":"2013-12-03T17:48:24","modified_gmt":"2013-12-03T17:48:24","slug":"tim-hecker-virgins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2013\/12\/03\/tim-hecker-virgins\/","title":{"rendered":"Tim Hecker – Virgins"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"tim-hecker-virgins-2013\"<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/b>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cForceful\u201d would be a compelling choice of word to describe Tim Hecker\u2019s Virgins<\/em>. Particularly in contrast to his previous work — most notably the masterful Ravedeath, 1972<\/em> — Virgins<\/em> might even be called \u201caccessible.\u201d It might be fair to say that Virgins effects in comparison to Ravedeath<\/em>\u2019s affection. Ravedeath explored the concept of the end of music with pipe organ, laptop and other instrumentation through a drone sound, giving the album a more academic feel. Virgins<\/em> is similarly academic in its production; Hecker is a PhD student in the cultural history of sound. His background knowledge and points of reference are beyond this reviewer\u2019s understanding. So while Hecker can still be contemplated from an academic reference, this album is jarring in its almost horror styling. \u201cLive Room,\u201d filled with distortion and a haunting piano melody nearly lost in the background, sounds poised to soundtrack a film.<\/p>\n


\n<\/b>But the Abu Ghraib referencing cover and album track \u201cIncense at Abu Ghraib\u201d point to something darker than just a slasher film. The album is dark and heavy throughout, and unsettlingly beautiful, as on \u201cPrisms II.\u201d And so for all of this, it would be easy to write off as a great soundtrack to a messy film, but the depth of sound here is more than just an appendage to a movie. Calling it a soundtrack makes it sound like an easy listen, and it isn\u2019t. Virgins<\/em> is gripping, challenging, powerful; a music-as-art album that forces us to think darkly. That darkness isn\u2019t always immediate or obvious, but often lingers in the bare moments of the album. A truly remarkable record, it demonstrates along with Hecker\u2019s past catalogue that his work Hecker hasn\u2019t stopped carefully conceptualizing albums, and that good things still remain in the future for his musical output. (Paper Bag Records, paperbagrecords.com<\/a>) Devin King<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u201cForceful\u201d would be a compelling choice of word to describe Tim Hecker\u2019s Virgins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8112\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}